Gensler to Design $650M Soccer Stadium in Downtown Chicago

Chicago’s Main League Soccer group, the Chicago Hearth, has unveiled plans to construct a $650-million soccer stadium, envisioned as an anchor of a largely empty space simply south of the town’s downtown district the place a multi-use district with housing, leisure and different makes use of can also be envisioned. 

A contractor has not but been introduced for the privately financed, open-air stadium designed by architectural agency Gensler. It can have 22,000 seats and a pure grass subject. Development is anticipated to begin within the fall or in early 2026 with completion in spring of 2028.

The stadium might be a part of The 78, a 62-acre growth situated alongside the Chicago River between Roosevelt Street, Clark Avenue and sixteenth Avenue. The stadium will occupy roughly 9 acres of the positioning that was previously a railyard and which is at the moment largely vacant. 

The Hearth has been owned since 2019 by Joe Mansueto, founder and govt chairman of Chicago-based monetary analysis agency Morningstar, who’s financing the challenge 100%. 

In a podcast on the group’s web site, Mansueto mentioned he thinks sports activities group house owners must privately finance their stadiums. 

“They’re very costly and dear to take care of, however I actually assume it [the cost] must be borne by the house owners of sports activities groups. That’s the place a lot of the worth accrues,” he mentioned. 

The stadium might be sited in The 78, a deliberate multi-use growth alongside the Chicago River.
Picture courtesy Associated Midwest and Black Artistic

Different stadium initiatives for Chicago’s skilled sports activities groups, such because the Nationwide Soccer League’s Chicago Bears, and Main League Baseball’s White Sox, have drawn on public financing for his or her building. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson praised Mansueto for not asking for taxpayer funding for the Chicago Hearth stadium. 

“He’s prepared to place actual pores and skin within the recreation,” Johnson mentioned in a press conference. 

Associated Midwest anticipates that The 78 mixed-use growth will even embrace eating places, outside gathering areas, a half-mile riverwalk, and a residential part that can embrace reasonably priced housing. 

The Hearth, which performed beforehand in suburban Bridgeview, Ailing., and at the moment performs at Soldier Discipline, just lately opened The Endeavor Efficiency Discipline, a brand new $100 million coaching facility two miles west of The 78 on a 30-acre web site previously owned by the Chicago Housing Authority. The contractor for that challenge was Chicago-based Pepper Development and the architect was Crawford Architects. 

Associated Midwest acquired the property for The 78 in 2016 and has since struggled to search out an anchor tenant for the bigger growth, and had sought out Amazon, United Airways, JP Morgan and on line casino firms earlier than deciding to pursue sports activities amenities. A brand new stadium for the White Sox had been mulled for the positioning, however a $1-billion public funding request didn’t win political assist.  

The White Sox group says it haven’t deserted the thought of presumably constructing its personal stadium at The 78. 

“We consider in Associated Midwest’s imaginative and prescient for The 78 and stay assured the riverfront location might function a house to each groups,” mentioned Joe Roti, a spokesperson for the White Sox in an electronic mail to ENR. “We proceed to have conversations with Associated Midwest concerning the web site’s prospects and alternatives.”

Curt Bailey, president of Associated Midwest, mentioned in an announcement that “the Hearth’s resolution to deliver the town’s first soccer-specific stadium to our web site will give rise to a wholly new sports activities and leisure district that prompts greater than a half-mile of downtown riverfront. Few establishments have the power to create the sweeping financial advantages this stadium will generate—and shortly.”

The Chicago Hearth can also be touting the stadium’s location close to public transportation and the river as an asset, including that “a parking storage and water taxis are in plan.”