WGN – The Fire announced plans early Tuesday morning for a privately financed $650 million, 22,000-seat soccer stadium at “The 78.” The stadium will be open-air with a natural grass field and, according to the team, will be the first part of a larger, mixed-use district that will take shape around it at “The 78.”
FULL STATEMENT:
My Observations:
- Joe Mansueto jumps right to the top of Chicago owners for personally financing the stadium which means he isn’t taking public money to do this project. He’s putting it up himself and whether that means his own cash, a combination of debt or whatever the hell structure it takes… there’s no taxpayer money involved. The guy just wants a badass stadium and he knows Chicago politics and Illinois taxpayers are two things you want to avoid completely. So the $650,000,000 comes under his name and that gets you a beef in this town.
- I am obsessed with this location. I used to live in the South Loop for 5 years and I proudly say it’s the best part of Chicago I lived in and that includes some dynamite locations like Roscoe Village and Armitage/Sheffield in a walk-up. I got some good spots and nothing comes close to the walkability and convenience of the South Loop. The proximity to the city center and the lakefront is amazing. The traffic cruises. There’s available street parking. A ton of public transportation stops and a lot of solid grocery stores. I’m big on the South Loop and this is no exaggeration a critical development to the area
- I love that we can tap into the neighborhood for the crowd. One thing that prevents me from enjoying a Fire game in person (seriously) is that I don’t want to go to an empty Soldier Field. That’s depressing. And the whole point of MLS fandom is to be rowdy assholes and that’s impossible in an echo chamber like an empty NFL stadium. Having a dedicated 22,000 capacity stadium will all but guarantee Chicago has one of the top atmospheres in MLS and then mix that with the local communities of Pilsen and Bridgeport. That place could turn into a lot of fun over night.
- Nobody cares about The Fire until it’s cool to care about The Fire. My hunch is that the next generation’s going to embrace them and make it cool on social media. This could happen quickly for us older guys. You might not even see it coming if you didn’t read this blog.
- Jerry Reinsdorf just got stuffed in a locker after rumors of him developing a baseball stadium on the same piece of land are now shot down forever. A huge gut punch to a lot of White Sox fans but also a good reminder that Jerry Reinsdorf doesn’t do shit for the City of Chicago.
- Shoutout to The Fire for waiting for the budget news from Springfield to land so this only looks better that owner Joe Mansueto doesn’t give a shit about funds from your local lawmaker
- Mansueto is the owner/founder of the investment research firm Morningstar and basically one of the richest guys in Chicago. He started the company for $80k in his apartment and then 15 years later it was valued at $500M. He’s an absolute beast of beasts in a world of cutthroat egomaniacs. He’s one of the good ones and actually passionate about making Chicago a better place and that’s enough to get my respect
PS – No surprise here but Mansueto grew up in Northwest Indiana which further solidifies my stance that Region Rats are the most underrated subspecies of Chicago culture. Maybe worth a separate blog at another time.