Quote:
Originally Posted by the urban politician
But I still think we are a long way off before a $200 million train stop is justified. If L stops didn't cost so much to build then it would be more of a slam dunk. But they are insanely expensive nowadays!
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Well, the Damen stop is slated to cost only $80M. You might be thinking of State/Lake or Washington/Wabash, which are more expensive because they're downtown and construction is tricky down there. Damen is still too expensive at that $80M price, so it's understandable why the city doesn't go hog-wild adding L stops everywhere there is some development - or
might be some development.
But again, it takes two to tango and the stadium owners have no intention of encouraging transit use or developing their lots. The city needs at least one of those two things, ideally both, to justify a new station. The last time the owners talked about development, it was just being used as a carrot for them to get more huge tax breaks. And even that was pretty limited, only one parking lot, where the teams eventually built their office building. They know the city wants redevelopment, but the owners clearly weren't interested in redevelopment for its own sake, even though it could be profitable to them.
You can't fix stupid. Just gotta wait for Reinsdorf to die - I'm guessing Wirtz might be more open to development, but Reinsdorf manages TWO stadiums with huge ugly parking moats. Ironic as Reinsdorf made his money in real estate
That tax break, by the way (which Rahm refused to give them) was large enough to fund a new station even at CTA's inflated costs. There is certainly a deal to be made where TIF funding from the parking lot development can pay for a station and/or other infrastructure in the area.