MAY 09, 2019|JENNIFER WATERS
Developer Starts Push for State Funds to Jumpstart $20 Billion Chicago Project
As Robert Dunn begins pitching the Illinois General Assembly on his bold One Central proposal this week for a staggering $20 billion megadevelopment on Chicago’s Lake Shore Drive, he has a lot of convincing to do.
The Landmark Development president’s calling card will be an estimated $3.8 billion transit hub that steps up access to the McCormick Place convention center, Field Museum and Soldier Field, home of the Chicago Bears football team. All three venues are draws for the masses but difficult to get to without a car. And even then, it’s still challenging.
The hub is expected to be the first phase of a 15-year redevelopment over 34 acres of mostly train tracks created by rerouting the tracks and building a platform over them, perhaps the quintessential transit-oriented development. He hopes to build as much as 20 million square feet of office, residential and hotel high-rises atop the transit hub that could create a mini-city on the south edge of the downtown core.
First, he has to sell lawmakers on the viability of another massive development proposal in the nation’s third-largest city that aims to link the Metra commuter train system, Amtrak trains and an extension of the CTA’s Orange Line. The city has been overloaded in recent years with large developments, such as Sterling Bay’s 55-acre Lincoln Yards proposal along the North Branch of the Chicago River, that have drummed up plenty of controversy tied to the hefty cost to taxpayers through tax-increment financing packages.
But Dunn isn’t asking the city for that. He’s going to the state instead. He said Landmark and other investors will cover the upfront costs of what he calls the “civic build,” which includes the structured deck over the tracks to create the transit, retail and entertainment hub west of Lake Shore Drive. He hopes to persuade legislators to team with Landmark on this phase through “a stream of equity payments” once it’s completed.
“The civic build creates the opportunity to do the vertical build,” he said, referring to the planned high-rises. The finished transit hub could make access to, say, the Field Museum more doable when the Bears are playing at Soldier Field.
Though he’s not technically requesting a TIF deal – at least not yet – he wants the state to jointly repay the infrastructure costs with Landmark through tax revenues the transit hub would generate once it’s in operation – estimated at $57.1 billion – as well as leasing income, parking revenue and other funds. In turn, Landmark deeds the transit center, sponsorship rights, 6,000 parking spaces, and the retail and event space around it to the state, according to Dunn.
And then he must gently encourage the General Assembly to push that $3.8 billion infrastructure piece through relatively quickly to take advantage of economic conditions – capital markets have been favorable to such large projects of late, he said – and potential funding or tax credit programs like opportunity zones from the federal government that are set to expire at the end of the year.
Developer Starts Push for State Funds to Jumpstart $20 Billion Chicago Project
As Robert Dunn begins pitching the Illinois General Assembly on his bold One Central proposal this week for a staggering $20 billion megadevelopment on Chicago’s Lake Shore Drive, he has a lot of convincing to do.
The Landmark Development president’s calling card will be an estimated $3.8 billion transit hub that steps up access to the McCormick Place convention center, Field Museum and Soldier Field, home of the Chicago Bears football team. All three venues are draws for the masses but difficult to get to without a car. And even then, it’s still challenging.
The hub is expected to be the first phase of a 15-year redevelopment over 34 acres of mostly train tracks created by rerouting the tracks and building a platform over them, perhaps the quintessential transit-oriented development. He hopes to build as much as 20 million square feet of office, residential and hotel high-rises atop the transit hub that could create a mini-city on the south edge of the downtown core.
First, he has to sell lawmakers on the viability of another massive development proposal in the nation’s third-largest city that aims to link the Metra commuter train system, Amtrak trains and an extension of the CTA’s Orange Line. The city has been overloaded in recent years with large developments, such as Sterling Bay’s 55-acre Lincoln Yards proposal along the North Branch of the Chicago River, that have drummed up plenty of controversy tied to the hefty cost to taxpayers through tax-increment financing packages.
But Dunn isn’t asking the city for that. He’s going to the state instead. He said Landmark and other investors will cover the upfront costs of what he calls the “civic build,” which includes the structured deck over the tracks to create the transit, retail and entertainment hub west of Lake Shore Drive. He hopes to persuade legislators to team with Landmark on this phase through “a stream of equity payments” once it’s completed.
“The civic build creates the opportunity to do the vertical build,” he said, referring to the planned high-rises. The finished transit hub could make access to, say, the Field Museum more doable when the Bears are playing at Soldier Field.
Though he’s not technically requesting a TIF deal – at least not yet – he wants the state to jointly repay the infrastructure costs with Landmark through tax revenues the transit hub would generate once it’s in operation – estimated at $57.1 billion – as well as leasing income, parking revenue and other funds. In turn, Landmark deeds the transit center, sponsorship rights, 6,000 parking spaces, and the retail and event space around it to the state, according to Dunn.
And then he must gently encourage the General Assembly to push that $3.8 billion infrastructure piece through relatively quickly to take advantage of economic conditions – capital markets have been favorable to such large projects of late, he said – and potential funding or tax credit programs like opportunity zones from the federal government that are set to expire at the end of the year.