Downtown still possible for casino, Lightfoot says
Don’t get “fixated” on five South and West Side sites for a Chicago casino because the list is “not definitive,” Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Thursday, refusing to rule out a downtown site.
Lightfoot said she excluded downtown sites from the list that will be the subject of a feasibility study by a consultant hired by the Illinois Gaming Board because of opposition from the convention and tourism industries.
“I’m not saying a downtown site is off the boards . . . . This is not the definitive list. We’ll form that later,” the mayor said.
“But there’s some concern about whether or not having a downtown site will detract from tourism. There are some tour operators and conventions that don’t want a downtown site because they feel like their conventioneers will go to the casino and not actually participate in the conventions. Rather than deal with that noise now — it’ll have to be dealt with down the road — we just took other sites,” primarily city-controlled.
For weeks, Lightfoot refused to discuss specific sites for the Chicago casino that has eluded her predecessors for decades. She said she would await results of the feasibility study.
That all changed this week when City Hall put its cards on the table, disclosing that five South and West Side sites would be studied for their ability to get financing:
♦ Near the Harborside International Golf Center site at 111th and the Bishop Ford Freeway.
♦ The former Michael Reese Hospital, at 31st and Cottage Grove.
♦ Pershing Road and State Street.
♦ Roosevelt Road and Kostner Avenue.
♦ The former U.S. Steel parcel at 80th Street and Lake Shore Drive.
“The feasibility study is purposely limited. Yes, there are sites there. But, don’t get fixated on those because those may or may not be the actual sites,” Lightfoot said.
“The primary focus of this study is to determine whether or not the financial structure — particularly the taxing element of it — is feasible. Whether or not we can actually put together a casino that can be financed. Because if we can’t, it’s all for naught and we need to start again.”
Aldermen were blindsided by the mayor’s list; two declared opposition to sites in their wards.
Without saying “I’m sorry,” the mayor all but apologized to aldermen blindsided by her list of sites.
“That’s a mistake . . . . The headline should never be, ‘Aldermen surprised.’ That should never happen and, if that happened, that’s a fail on our part. We will own it and we will correct it,” she said.
Lightfoot, who had criticized Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s top-down approach, promised to “reach out to people in all 77 neighborhoods to focus on what they’d like to see, what their concerns, what their issues are.”