Scott Goodman fends off competitors eyeing long-planned lakefront parcel

Scott Goodman is defending his timeline for the redevelopment of the Marshaling Yards by the McCormick Place convention complex on the South Side, as other developers champ at the bit to take on the project and urge the city to reopen a contest for the property.

A coalition called GRIT Chicago that’s led by Goodman’s firm Farpoint is facing criticism from competing developers, after it was chosen in 2017 to redevelop the site, which currently serves as a truck parking lot for businesses operating near the convention center bordering Bronzeville and Prairie Shores, the Chicago Business Journal reported.

Goodman referenced the pandemic and the substantial amount of time needed when undertaking large projects as reasons for its groundbreaking remaining a ways off.

The Marshaling Yards is a 1.2 million-square-foot parcel that has remained undeveloped for almost six years. Other local developers believe that Goodman is too preoccupied with his neighboring $4 billion Bronzeville Lakefront effort — a mixed-use project led by GRIT that could bring 7.8 million-square-feet of new development to the former Michael Reese hospital site. It’s slated for a 2041 completion.

An agreement between GRIT and the agency that oversees McCormick Place, called the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, ended Monday. It had restricted MPEA from engaging in discussions with other developers regarding the Marshaling Yards site. Critics argue that such agreements should be forbidden when there’s no progress over a prolonged period.

Yet the MPEA is still engaged in discussions with GRIT about the project, a spokeswoman for the agency told the outlet. That could result in the coalition being given some more time to reimagine the site.

“I don’t think it’s fair that GRIT is kept in place when it has done nothing with that property in nearly six years,” a developer who was granted anonymity told the outlet. “It’s clear that GRIT is preoccupied with the Bronzeville Lakefront development that will take years to complete, so instead of holding up progress with the Marshaling Yards, it should step aside and let someone else have the project.”

Goodman pushed back, asserting that any large-scale project requires a tremendous amount of time, collaboration and foundational groundwork, and called claims that no progress has been made with the site “unfounded” in a statement to the outlet.

He added that the site must continue servicing operations of McCormick Place in the meantime, and Bronzeville Lakefront has been designed to spur economic growth in the area. In addition, GRIT must build an alternative logistics site to replace the Marshaling Yards before proceeding with a project.

— Quinn Donoghue 

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