In a 39-5 vote, the Chicago City Council approved Bally’s proposal for a $1.7 billion casino downtown at the Chicago Tribune Freedom Center printing plant at Chicago Avenue and Halsted Street.
Now Bally’s can start construction on the facility, which will include 4,000 gaming positions, a 500-room hotel, a 3,000-seat theater and event center and a river walk, and create 3,000 construction jobs and 3,000 permanent positions. Opening is targeted for 2026.
The council vote followed approvals from the city’s Plan Commission and the Committee on Zoning, Landmarks and Building Standards. Bally’s still is waiting for approval from the Illinois Gaming Board to operate in Chicago. As soon as that’s granted, Bally’s plans to open a temporary casino at the historic Medinah Temple in 2023.
At the council meeting, Bally’s executives once again promised that 46 percent of all contracts will go to minority or women-owned firms and 60 percent of employees will be minorities. Christopher Jewett, Bally’s vice president of corporate development, said trade unions and Bally’s are working together to assure minority hiring. “Everybody is in sync to make sure they’re hiring from the community,” he said.
Earlier, 27th Ward Alderman Walter Burnett, whose ward includes the casino site, threatened to “raise a lot of hell” if he didn’t see in writing the minority hiring agreements between Bally’s and labor unions. But after receiving hundreds of comments from aides to Mayor Lori Lightfoot, union leaders and Bally’s management, Burnett retreated and said he’s not convinced Bally’s will honor its workforce promises bus comforted by the agreements. “I want to make sure people from Cabrini, people from my neighborhood, can get jobs. I got that commitment,” Burnett said.
Before the final vote, 2nd Ward Alderman Brian Hopkins expressed his concerns with the deal, calling Bally’s “an under-capitalized team with no track record running a big-city casino, let alone building a massive project. We’re hitching our wagon to an inexperienced team. That could come back to haunt us.”
However, Burnett responded, “This project is bigger than anybody’s ego. This is something that three administrations have been trying to do. This mayor got it done. With this casino, we’re gonna get $200 million a year, man, to help us out. We’re talking about 6,000 jobs in a neighborhood we used to call Ghost Town.” Bally’s already has paid the city $40 million.
At a post-vote news conference, Mayor Lightfoot said she had “no concerns whatsoever “about Bally’s ability to finance the casino project. She called financing questions “nonsense,” adding, “We vetted this 20 ways to Sunday. Bally’s has secured, right now, today, over $1.7 billion for building this casino. They have the money to get it done.”
