A ballpark on the west bank of the Chicago River
Forty-seven acres of rail yard, just south of Roosevelt Road. That is where Justin Ishbia, a minority owner of the Chicago White Sox, wants to put a baseball stadium.
The site is the Amtrak yard south of the Loop, on the west bank of the Chicago River. Shore Capital Partners, Ishbia’s firm, has already signed a purchase agreement. Renderings of the ballpark landed this week, released by Canal Edge, another entity he owns. The wider real estate development has a name: “The Railyards”.
“The Railyards is about turning unused land into opportunity,” Ishbia said in a statement. “This is a Chicago project, built by Chicagoans and for Chicagoans.”
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Nothing moves until Amtrak does
The whole thing hinges on Amtrak shifting its operations to Bridgeport. Ishbia has put up roughly $125 million to hurry that along. The Federal Railroad Administration has released $572 million in grants. Estimated cost of the move: $900 million.
Sports money is already circling the neighborhood. MLS side Chicago Fire have broken ground on a $750 million stadium on the east bank. Same plot, incidentally, that Jerry Reinsdorf once eyed for a White Sox ballpark of his own. That plan went nowhere.
Ishbia lines up the Reinsdorf succession
He is not in charge yet. Ishbia struck an investment deal with Reinsdorf last year: the chairman can hand over his majority stake any time between 2029 and 2033, and from 2034 Ishbia holds the right to buy it outright. His brother Mat and father Jeff are in on the investment too.
Which makes the timing less strange than it looks. Stadiums take years. The man who expects to own the club is drawing up the plans well before he gets the keys.
The White Sox have played at Rate Field on the South Side since 1991. Before that, Comiskey Park across 35th Street, from 1910 to 1990. One move in more than a century, and it covered a few dozen yards. Downtown would be another matter entirely.
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