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Thought this may deserve its own catch-all topic.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ ... 9669.story

McCormick Place entertainment district's final land acquisition approved
By Ellen Jean Hirst
Tribune staff reporter
11:42 a.m. CDT, May 23, 2014

Board members of the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, a state-city agency known as McPier, have approved property acquisition for the last plots of land needed to build an entertainment district in the South Loop around McCormick Place.

“This is all very exciting for Chicago,” board chairman Jack Greenberg said. “This means jobs, more tourism, more convention business.”

The project in the historic Motor Row district has been approved by the Commission on Chicago Landmarks and will include a basketball arena for DePaul University, a 1,200-room Marriott hotel, the rehab of the American Book Co. building into meeting rooms and retail, a data center, and a smaller boutique hotel.

The project is meant to revitalize the stagnated Motor Row district, the area surrounding McCormick Place.

CenterPoint Properties Trust, an Oak Brook-based industrial development firm, owned the final parcel needed for the arena and the ABC building. The land will be purchased for $40 million, as expected, the McPier board members said.

I believe there's not much left to be done here. May need one more approval form the Chicago City Council, but the school and the city have done a pretty decent job of making most of the dissenters pretty happy. I know the school is hoping to break ground by the end of 2014, and final plans should surface some time this summer.

Yeah, it seems like this project is now getting good press. I read that the arena design is very open and modern. Really looking forward to seeing DePaul out of the All State.

This is great news for the conference!

All they need now is an athletic director with a clue and a solid coaching staff.

It disgusts me that St. John's one of the more storied programs in the conference located in NYC is being outdone by...DePaul in terms of a facility to play. Our current on campus arena (Carnesecca Arena) is literally a high school gym with industrial metal beams everywhere and light fixtures blocking the view from the upper level. There are no seatbacks or cushions until you are only 10 rows up from the court or so. But 80% of the place is hard plastic and metal. No character at all, no modern amenities, nothing even remotely impressive, and you never get that "homey" feeling. You leave the place with a sore lower back and a sore behind. The place actually is so bad that it encourages you NOT to come back. The student section is a joke with a few rows raised above each hoop. You feel like you are watching the game from a giraffe's shoulders. Totally removed from the experience.

Ok so I went on a bit of a rant there, but seriously...I was shocked the first time I ever set foot there and I'm still shocked today. Many mid major programs have much nicer home arenas aligned to meet modern needs. Take Binghamton and Boston University for two easy examples.

SJHooper wrote:It disgusts me that St. John's one of the more storied programs in the conference located in NYC is being outdone by...DePaul in terms of a facility to play. Our current on campus arena (Carnesecca Arena) is literally a high school gym with industrial metal beams everywhere and light fixtures blocking the view from the upper level. There are no seatbacks or cushions until you are only 10 rows up from the court or so. But 80% of the place is hard plastic and metal. No character at all, no modern amenities, nothing even remotely impressive, and you never get that "homey" feeling. You leave the place with a sore lower back and a sore behind. The place actually is so bad that it encourages you NOT to come back. The student section is a joke with a few rows raised above each hoop. You feel like you are watching the game from a giraffe's shoulders. Totally removed from the experience.

Ok so I went on a bit of a rant there, but seriously...I was shocked the first time I ever set foot there and I'm still shocked today. Many mid major programs have much nicer home arenas aligned to meet modern needs. Take Binghamton and Boston University for two easy examples.

Okay so you don't like playing in MSG? We only play our lower level OOC games at Carnesecca. We also have a neighborhood who fights us on any construction plans we have. Do you suggest we tear down Carnesecca and rebuild it?

Oh and the DePaul arena is not on campus so I don't get your frustration. The city of Chicago is building this arena and New York just built Barclays.

They are breaking ground near the beginning of 2015, the original plan was to break ground in late 2014. I doubt the yet to be named "McCormick Place Multipurpose Events Center" will be open in time for the start of the 2016-2017 season, but it may be open in time for 2016-2017 season conference play. DePaul has a Lincoln Park Campus and a Loop Campus and 3 suburban commuter campus locations (O'Hare, Naperville, and Oak Forest). The "Multipurpose Events Center" will be on the Near South Side , just south of the Prairie District and South Loop and immediately north of the McCormick Place West Building, nowhere near the Loop or Lincoln Park Campuses. The Cermak/McCormick Place Green Line 'L" Station will be at Cermak Road/Wabash Avenue 2 full city blocks west of the "Multipurpose Events Center" the Green Line doesn't go anywhere near the Lincoln Park Campus but does go by the Loop Campus at Adams/Wabash. They passed up 2 excellent locations to build DePaul's new arena. The former site of A. Finkl & Sons Co. steel mill at Southport Avenue and Cortland Street, which moved to 93rd Street on the Far Southeast Side (walkable from the Lincoln Park Campus and the site is slated to stay industrial with an industrial park with 2 other industrial properties when it should be turned into commercial and residential) and the former site of the New City YMCA which is currently under construction for a mixed-use development called New City. One city block SW of the North/Clybourn Red Line Subway Station (one stop from the Lincoln Park Campus)

Boyee wrote:They are breaking ground near the beginning of 2015, the original plan was to break ground in late 2014. I doubt the yet to be named "McCormick Place Multipurpose Events Center" will be open in time for the start of the 2016-2017 season, but it may be open in time for 2016-2017 season conference play. DePaul has a Lincoln Park Campus and a Loop Campus and 3 suburban commuter campus locations (O'Hare, Naperville, and Oak Forest). The "Multipurpose Events Center" will be on the Near South Side , just south of the Prairie District and South Loop and immediately north of the McCormick Place West Building, nowhere near the Loop or Lincoln Park Campuses. The Cermak/McCormick Place Green Line 'L" Station will be at Cermak Road/Wabash Avenue 2 full city blocks west of the "Multipurpose Events Center" the Green Line doesn't go anywhere near the Lincoln Park Campus but does go by the Loop Campus at Adams/Wabash. They passed up 2 excellent locations to build DePaul's new arena. The former site of A. Finkl & Sons Co. steel mill at Southport Avenue and Cortland Street, which moved to 93rd Street on the Far Southeast Side (walkable from the Lincoln Park Campus and the site is slated to stay industrial with an industrial park with 2 other industrial properties when it should be turned into commercial and residential) and the former site of the New City YMCA which is currently under construction for a mixed-use development called New City. One city block SW of the North/Clybourn Red Line Subway Station (one stop from the Lincoln Park Campus)

"They" who? DePaul? Why would they put up all the money themselves to build a arena when the city was willing to build one for them? Yes, it's not right next to campus but it's a hell of a lot better than their current situation.

You could say that. At that dollar figure, it'll be swagged out to an order of magnitude of something like Yum Center in Louisville (at a similar price tag)

DePaul is going to be a very dangerous program in the Big East with this building in that city with all those players.

They'll most likely make a big dollar hire to coincide with the completion of the project to ride the wave of momentum. Could you imagine someone like Scott Drew, with the way he recruits, in Chicago with that building?

As a DePaul alumnus, I still think the Near South Side/McCormick Place location is better than the Allstate Arena in Rosemont, IL, and know it couldn't be on campus (due to it being DePaul's Lincoln Park Campus being in 3 historic Lincoln Park neighborhoods (Sheffield (Halsted Street, Fullerton Avenue, North Branch of Chicago River, Armitage Avenue, Racine Avenue and Cortland Steet) Wrightwood Neighbors (Fullerton Avenue, Halsted Street, Lakewood Avenue and Diversey Parkway) and Lincoln Central (Halsted Street, Lincoln Avenue, North Avenue and the former Ogden Avenue Right-of-Way) (School of Education building)), but I was really hoping for it to be built in one of the industrial corridor properties (like the former A. Finkl & Sons Co. steel mill land) so it would be somewhat near campus and walkable for students.

DePaul will only own 40% of the new Events Center and will have to pay rent to play there. The Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority (MPEA or McPier) will own 60%. It will be on the small city block bordered by E. Cermak Road (south), S. Indiana Avenue (west), S. Prairie Avenue (east), and E. 21st Street (north). It will be on the Near South Side between McCormick Place's West Building to the south and the Prairie District neighborhood to the north.