The Chicago Fire soccer club will build an $80M training center on CHA land in Roosevelt Square, after Mayor Lori Lightfoot sealed the deal.
No matter who is elected mayor next month, there will be no undoing the controversial zoning change outgoing Mayor Lori Lightfoot muscled through the City Council allowing the Chicago Fire soccer club to build an $80 million training center on Chicago Housing Authority land.
Besides paying $8 million upfront, the Fire will pay annual rent to the CHA. It will start at almost $800,000, with increases in future years. The lease extends 40 years with two 10-year renewal options and is expected to generate $40 million in revenue for the CHA over the next 40 years. "This potential new facility will both fulfill this need and provide the surrounding West Side community with job opportunities, recreational activities and community gathering spaces. Additionally, the millions of dollars in rental income generated by this project will support the CHA's efforts to rehabilitate and build affording housing in the surrounding areas," the mayor was quoted as saying.
In late September, Lightfoot regrouped and won Council passage of a zoning change for the training center shot down by the Zoning Committee one day before. "My concerns are just the perception of the impropriety of deals being made - public land being given away meant for housing - and the result being less than altruistic. This seems very much like typical Chicago way, pay-to-play politics that the mayor has railed against and ran against when she was elected," Lopez told the Chicago Sun-Times.
Christina Freundlich, a spokesperson for the Lightfoot campaign, insisted then that government decision-making under Lightfoot was "firewalled from political campaign activities" and that Lightfoot's team "executes a rigorous vetting process on every contribution to ensure we have complied with all campaign finance rules and laws."
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