More than $600 million in federal grants announced Friday will help Amtrak relocate its Chicago maintenance facility from the South Loop to Bridgeport, paving the way for a new mega-development backed by potential White Sox chairman-in-waiting Justin Ishbia that could eventually grow to include a new stadium.
Amtrak is putting most of its newly awarded Federal Railroad Administration funding toward a new Midwest Maintenance Facility at the current site of a Union Pacific rail yard in Bridgeport, according to an Amtrak statement.
That’ll open up Amtrak’s current 47-acre site along the Chicago River south of Roosevelt Road, which Ishbia’s private equity firm, Shore Capital Partners, is under contract to purchase. The firm announced plans in March for a mixed-use development including a medical campus in partnership with Northwestern Medicine.
Amtrak is hosting a community meeting on the new rail yard project Aug. 26 at 5:30 p.m. at the Pui Tak Center, 2218 S. Wentworth Ave.
