Emanuel To Announce McCormick Place Stadium Project For DePaul

By Chuck Sudo in News on May 13, 2013 10:15PM

DePaul’s long and winding road to secure a stadium within the Chicago city limits is nearing an endgame. The Sun-Times broke the news this afternoon that Mayor Rahm Emanuel will announce plans later this week for a 12,000-seat stadium for the university near McCormick Place. The project, if it receives green lights from the state and university, would cost $300 million.

According to the Sun-Times the university will contribute $100 million, $100 million will come in the form of state taxpayer dollars and the remaining tab will be picked up by a naming rights sponsor. There has to be some lobbying to do, especially on the state end, and bond language needs to be clarified in order for the plan to be fast-tracked.

It's the latest twist in DePaul's ongoing quest to secure space in the city for a stadium that has had them, in recent weeks, looking at McCormick Place and the site of the A. Finkl & Sons steel plant in Lincoln Park as options for a stadium.

DePaul rejected a proposal in March that would have allowed them to call the United Center home, rent free, for a decade. Sources tell the Sun-Times supporters of the McCormick Place plan will use the United Center proposal as leverage to securing the funding for the stadium.

DePaul officials have long contended a Chicago stadium would be the perfect tonic for their basketball program to land blue chip prospects and return it to its Ray Meyer glory days, especially as they set to form a new conference with the other Catholic universities that split from the Big East earlier this year. When we wrote about the United Center proposal last November we said Emanuel would likely be behind any proposal that would bring DePaul's basketball team inside the city limits and that the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority claims to have the bonds to fund the project. But how can a state and city that has insisted the Cubs, who generate much more revenue for Chicago than DePaul, develop a plan to renovate Wrigley Field without taxpayer subsidies justify forking over $100 in taxpayer money to this project.

Ald. Bob Fioretti (2nd) was opposed to the McCormick Place plan last year and wondered if McPier had the bonding authority to build an arena.

“That’s still taxpayers’ money in tough economic times,” he said.

Emanuel is expected to make the announcement in tandem with another plan for two hotel complexes near McCormick Place. Emanuel and Gov. Pat Quinn announced a 1,200 room hotel in February on Cermak Road between Michigan and Indiana Avenues which is expected to allow McCormick Place to add 15 mid-market events annually, attracting an extra 80,000 conventioneers, at a cost of $400 million. Both projects are expected to benefit from a new transportation center to be built near McCormick Place that includes a Green Line stop and express bus lanes, to be funded in part by a $2 per vehicle "congestion fee" on motorists parking downtown.