Jul 8, 2008 9:09 pm US/Central
City Plans To Buy Reese Site For Olympic Village
CHICAGO (CBS) ―
A change in plans for Chicago's proposed 2016 Olympic Village will be introduced at Wednesday's City Council meeting.
CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine reports that the proposal would authorize the city to purchase of the former Michael Reese Medical Center, then allow developers to bid for the right to build the Olympic Village and sell or rent the property after the Olympic Games in 2016
Once one of Chicago's top hospitals, Michael Reese has been almost deserted recently. It is scheduled to close completely at the end of the year.
Only 5 of 27 hospital buildings are still occupied. The land that the city proposes to buy for $85 million is clearly more valuable than the buildings that are there.
City Planning Commissioner Arnold Randall said, "37 acres on the lakefront, that doesn't exist anywhere else in the city, except maybe the USX site on the South Side."
Ald. Toni Preckwinkle (4th) said, "I think this is a great deal for the city of Chicago."
Preckwinkle showed off an aerial photo of the two-block-wide strip of land, separated only by South Shore Railroad tracks from the McCormick Place truck marshalling yards. That's where the Olympic Village was originally supposed to be built, but with the Michael Reese site for sale, the deal was a natural.
Chicago 2016 Chairman Patrick Ryan said, "It just gives us a lot more flexibility."
It is also a chance to develop perhaps the biggest and best Olympic Village ever, which would then become a major lakefront retail-residential complex; a win-win proposition for the city and the community.
"There's a commitment that the new development will include affordable housing, will meet the city's minority and women owned business requirements and also include local hiring," Preckwinkle said.
Ryan said, "The Olympic movement wants to come into a city and have it better when they leave. They want the city to be better off and it will be. This is an urban legacy of grand scale."
The city said no public money would be used for the village, which will now be linked rather than separated from the near South Side.
That could increase public support for the project and the games, a key factor for the International Olympic Committee when it decides what city will host the 2016 Summer Olympics.
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