Good news for West Side with $7 billion United Center campus plan

The United Center has been a bit of a paradox for the past 30 years.

Built in 1994 for $175 million, the venue represented a major investment on the Near West Side back when the area was severely under-resourced, and when many pro sports teams were abandoning big cities for suburbia and asking taxpayers to help with the cost of the move.

But after building the stadium, the Wirtz and Reinsdorf families, owners of the UC, committed the most flagrant of fouls: They surrounded the building with acres of surface parking.

The move stifled the chances of a new neighborhood growing up around the UC. And it essentially put a brick on the possibility of the westward redevelopment, that has been emanating from downtown since the UC's construction, from reaching farther into the West Side.

Until now, perhaps.

It's early in the game yet, but so far, we like the 10-year, privately-funded $7 billion plan announced this week by United Center officials to turn 55-acres around the stadium into a new neighborhood of commercial and residential buildings, with greenspace and a 6,000-seat music venue.

"We think that this project is going to send a powerful, positive message to the world, and it’s going to showcase how Chicago and Illinois continue to set new standards in partnership, architecture, community commitment, growth — all on the heels of what we know is going to be a successful [Democratic National] convention," United Center Chief Executive Officer Terry Savarise said.

Done carefully and correctly, the project would fill-in a piece that's crucial to the greater redevelopment of the West Side — and benefit Chicago at the same time.

A neighborhood, not a sports and entertainment district

United Center officials are calling the effort the 1901 Project, a name that riffs on the United Center's address of 1901 W. Madison St.

Michael Reinsdorf, a son of White Sox chairman Jerry Reinsdorf; and Danny Wirtz, a son of late Blackhawks owner Rocky Wirtz, are leading the project.

Construction on the first of the project's seven phases could begin next spring, Savarise said.

The revitalized area would also include a new hotel. And the planned elevated parks are intriguing, with parking places below sustainable greenspace designed by Site Design Group, a landscape architecture firm with work that includes Chinatown's Ping Tom Park.

The concert venue, designed by Los Angeles architecture firm RIOS, is planned for the north side of Madison Street across from the UC, occupying the parking lots that were created when the old Chicago Stadium was demolished.

Savarise described the planned new campus as "much more a neighborhood and much less a sports and entertainment district.”

Taking the West Side out of stasis

There are many questions to answer as this impressive project moves forward.

How can public transit to the UC — and beyond — be improved by all this development? For instance, now would be a good time to finally consider a Pink Line stop for the area.

And the significant park space planned: UC officials said they are looking to program the space, but what entity will own it? The United Center, or the Chicago Park District?

The UC and the city each say they are in discussions about the project, which is a good sign.

It's also a good sign — better than good, actually — that the Wirtzes and Reinsdorfs aren't looking to the public to help them fund the project.

And maybe the effort will help Jerry Reinsdorf see that a similar approach to rethink the 70 barren acres of parking lots around Guaranteed Rate Field is better than trying to move the White Sox to The 78 development site and sticking taxpayers for the cost.

Meanwhile, next month’s Democratic National Convention is a reminder of how much of the West Side has been in stasis, redevelopment-wise, since Chicago last hosted the DNC at the United Center 28 years ago this summer.

The 1996 convention — and the amount of infrastructure and beautification work done in preparation for it — helped put the area between the then-new United Center and the western edge of downtown on its remarkable ascendancy.

It's time for the action to move farther west, and Project 1901 could be just the catalyst to make it happen.

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