Mayor's casino plan goes bust
Illinois officials reject proposal to bring gambling to downtown Chicago

By Chris Coates
Editor-in-Chief

A plan by Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley that would have brought gambling within walking distance of Columbia’s South Loop campus was nixed by Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who said he would not grant the state’s 11th casino license.

One of the possible sites for Daley’s land-based casino sits less than a mile west of Columbia’s campus.
Blagojevich said he would not approve the Chicago-owned casino less than 24 hours after a May 10 press conference in which Daley said he would ask state lawmakers for permission to build a casino “near downtown.”

Daley said the venture could bring in as much as $300 million in annual revenue for the city. He said the funds could help finance city schools and city building construction costs.

While Daley did not pin down an exact location, early speculation pointed to one of a handful of tracts of available land large enough to support a land-based casino, an official in the city’s Planning and Development Department said.

One such plot was the vacant 8-acre lot on the southwest corner of Harrison and Wells streets, about six blocks west of Columbia’s Residence Center, 731 S. Plymouth Court.

The parcel sits north of the River City condominium and butts up against the south branch of the Chicago River. The Cook County Assessor’s Office values the land at $629,200.

The land is owned by Jackson, Fla.-based CSX Real Property Inc., the real estate subsidiary of the national railroad company, and is zoned commercial. In the plot’s current unoccupied state, residents from the nearby River City complex use the land as a makeshift dog park.

Representatives from River City did not return calls from The Chronicle.

Other sites reportedly included the vacant U.S. Post Office along East Congress Parkway and the McCormick Place Lakeside Center. All three locations are near major expressways.

No location would be named until the state grants the city a casino license, said Daley’s spokeswoman Rosa Escareno.

And while Daley’s plan to place a bustling casino near downtown may be on hold, the area’s U.S. congressman said the city should be weary of relying on gambling funds to finance city projects.

“What worries me is the continuing reliance upon gaming as a primary resource to generate capital to operate government,” U.S. Rep. Danny Davis (D-Ill.) told The Chronicle from his Washington, D.C., office.

Davis, whose district includes Columbia, said he is concerned that a casino in the area would be “detrimental to the educational Mecca in the South Loop.”

But he stopped short of all out condemning the efforts to building a gambling venue within city limits.
“If there is to be gaming,” Davis said, “I’d much rather for the money spent by Chicagoans to remain in Chicago, at least some of it, to help the costs of operating the government.”

Daley has floated the idea of a casino in Chicago before, including millings in the late 1980s for a casino in the South Loop. Blagojevich, meanwhile, has repeatedly said he will not support any additional casino developments in the state.

The state operates nine casinos in Illinois, none of which are in Chicago. The state granted a 10th casino license for a gambling venture in northwest suburban Rosemont, Ill.

An 11th license, this time for downtown, would be too much, the governor said.

“Putting a casino in Chicago opens the door for all of us to take the easy way out and avoid making the difficult and necessary budget decisions,” Blagojevich said at the May 11 conference.