It looks like maybe that little sliver along the river will be a bike path, hopefully connecting to the lakefront trail. It definitely will look nothing like these renderings, and it will be interesting to see if the Sox get a stadium there too (and the impact that has) but obvs this is all very nice to look at for now.
1) It would be nice to see the riverwalk connect all the way down to the site. 2) Even as a Sox fan worried they’ll get moved, I wouldn’t want to see two stadiums on the site if one was subsidized by the government and one was not.
It's planned, at least. God knows if it'll happen in the next 25 years. https://www.r-barc.com/work/chicago-riverwalk-south-branch
Looks nice, but seems like too much money for the size of the stadium. It will be interesting to learn more as this develops.
One obvious thing no one has pointed out is the likely death of the current tailgate culture. Their stated desire is to create a 365 day a year (366 days in leap years) entertainment district much like Wrigleyville. There are no stadium parking lots, only garages. There will be no place Javier to "sell" tacos for free and I doubt any private lot will allow the type of tailgating we're used to.
There's talk of stadium naming rights going for north of $10 million a season. Baldwin mentioned Fortune 500 companies are interested. This will allow Joe to recoup a nice chunk of his investment.
The ‘problem’ with tailgating is it’s free The renderings show what looks like ‘rental tents’ for pregame hang, like is common across college campuses for NCAA football. Everything about the new digs appears to leave ‘jamming econo’ behind
I have no interest in packages with 'dining experiences' and parking. Since I moved to the burbs last fall (I know, I know) ill take the Skokie Swift.
I think you're missing the "tailgaiting" part of parking. There may be parking. There does not appear to be any accommodations for tailgaiting.
Agree tailgating will be hurt. Offering rental tents not quite the same experience. Just trying to make sure I understand what the development will be.
Pilsen is just across the river. Ping Tom park is just south. There is still flat land just south of River City. Id wager there is a private flat place fairly close with whom discussions could be had.
The new stadium will have a number of pluses and also a few minuses. Kinda like moving to a newer, bigger house. “Another bedroom, a dining room and a family room, but I will miss my breakfast nook.” And it will cost more. Good that these shortcomings are mentioned so every possible solution is considered but losses are inevitable.
It's a downright poor environment for downtown development. The office space market is depressed (see Lincoln Yards). Commercial development save hospitality & leisure is slumping. Any residential development will be challenged by repurposed office developments and community demands for affordable housing. The Wrigleyville entertainment district evolved the way it did due to a fragmented and constrained real estate market which was ripe for the Ricketts' strategy of playing the long game to muscle out the little guys. While The 78 is a clean canvas, Lincoln Yards (and on a parallel track the Bears in Arlington Heights) illustrate that creating a Rosemont or Wrigleyville is not done in one fell swoop. And whatever develops in and around The 78 will be much more bourgeois than proletarian.
The red brick sits comfortably with a classic Chicago architectural look. There is also alot of glass there, which also points to Chicago's invention of the skyscraper, via steel I beam skeleton, allowing more glass and less masonry, ala the Monadnack, Marquette and Reliant buildings. Inadequate max seating (pushing higher ticket prices that exclude too many people), but damn good looking basic design.