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Chicago

Onni buys Goose Island site close to city’s potential first casino

Onni Group is developing the Halsted Point apartment project

Onni's Duncan Wlodarczak with 700 West Chicago Avenue (LinkedIn, Google Maps)
Onni's Duncan Wlodarczak with 700 West Chicago Avenue (LinkedIn, Google Maps)

The developer responsible for the Halsted Point development on Goose Island is buying another large site nearby, not far from where the city’s first casino may be built.

Canada’s Onni Group is completing a deal to buy a 7-acre property at 700 West Chicago Avenue from a joint venture of Nexstar and Riverside Investment & Development, Crain’s reported. Onni is responsible for the 2.7 million-square-foot Halsted Point complex, just north of the new site.

While Onni hasn’t revealed specific plans for the site, people familiar with the company’s plan said Onni will probably build a residential project. The site could accommodate one as large as 1.5 million square feet with as many as 1,000 apartments.

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The building on the site was once owned by Chicago Tribune parent Tribune Media. In 2018, Riverside and Tribune Media, which has since been bought by Nexstar, won City Council approval to demolish the vacant 115,000-square-foot building and build a four-tower office and residential complex. After the pandemic drove down demand for office space, Riverside and Nexstar gave up on the plans.

Bally’s, one of three companies pitching plans to build Chicago’s new casino, submitted a bid for a 30-acre site just south of the old Tribune building and said it could use the 700 West Chicago Avenue property as a temporary casino while the permanent one was being built. While that would delay the planned redevelopment, it’s not yet clear exactly how the casino project would affect the pending sale of the property to Onni.

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot is expected to pick Bally’s to develop the $1.7 billion casino project, the Chicago Tribune reported. Bally’s has been the frontrunner throughout the process, which heated up last year when five finalists were chosen, the Chicago Tribune reported, citing unidentified people.

The City Council last summer approved Onni’s Goose Island project, which will be on the site of a former Greyhound bus maintenance facility at 901 North Halsted Street. That project will include a 300-room hotel and 1,400 parking spaces, as well as the first apartments on Goose Island.

[CCB] — Victoria Pruitt 

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Goose IslandOnni Group