Related Midwest got a financial boost from the Chicago Fire soccer stadium project last week.
An LLC tied to Joe Mansueto’s major league soccer team spent $69 million on a land parcel, as a part of its $650 million stadium project that kicked off earlier this month, public records show.
Mansueto’s venture bought the site at 1331 South Wells Street from Roosevelt/Clark Partners, LCC, an entity previous reports have shown is tied to both Related and co-owner of the land, Iraqi-British billionaire Nadhmi Auchi. Related Midwest CEO Curt Bailey signed the deed on the $69 million deal with the Chicago Fire, records show.
The parcel is part of a 62-acre property that Related and Auchi own, called The 78. Marketed as Chicago’s 78th neighborhood, Related has planned several iterations of a megadevelopment on the site, but has struggled to find its footing.
Now, the privately-funded stadium will serve as an anchor for Related’s latest development proposal, which is expected to be an $8 billion mixed-use campus along the South Branch of the Chicago River.
The Chicago City Council gave final approval for the 22,000-seat stadium in September, giving the soccer club time to meet its goal of having the project finished in time for Major League Soccer’s 2028 season, the Chicago Tribune reported at the time.
The large swath of land along the southwest side of the Loop, just north of Chinatown, has remained vacant since Related bought it in 2016. It has been positioned as a potential site for a new stadium for the Chicago White Sox, and as a research campus for The University of Illinois at Chicago, but both proposals failed to materialize.
About 5,000 apartments are part of Related Midwest’s remaining plans for the area surrounding the stadium, along with over a mile of bike trails, 3 acres of sports fields, public parking and a water taxi stop along the 1,400 feet of riverfront.
In September, Curt Bailey, president of Related Midwest, told the Chicago Plan Commission that a 2019 proposal to build a new CTA Red Line stop and re-direct nearby Metra train tracks had become too costly and would be scrapped in future versions of the development. The 2019 agreement is expected to be renegotiated, according to Ciere Boatright, commissioner of the Chicago Department of Planning and Development.