SkyscraperPage Forum - Chicago Mayor Proposes Five Sites for City Casino

I thought this was interesting. Chicago is planning to build a casino within the city limits in order to generate tax revenue and, potentially, boost employment.

Five sites have been proposed, entirely on the less wealthy West and South sides.

What do you guys think of this idea? Do you think it will bring some degree of economic prosperity to the impoverished areas of Chicago? If so, which site is best?

My apologies if a thread on this topic has been posted already.

Quote:

Which of five casino sites floated by Mayor Lori Lightfoot offers the best chance to reap a promised economic windfall?

A state-hired consultant says the proposed tax structure for a Chicago casino is "very onerous" and could fail to attract an investor.

All five sites are on the South and West sides. The absence of any downtown or North Side locations reflects Lightfoot's campaign pledge to direct economic developments to economically struggling areas of the city.

To provide a deeper understanding of the sites, Tribune researchers and reporters assembled data that focuses on characteristics like transportation (average daily traffic counts on nearby expressways, for example) and neighborhood characteristics such as average household income and crime levels. We also assessed whether each site has the support of its local alderman and gauged the overall size of the gambling market in northern Illinois and northern Indiana.

Among the highlights of the analysis:

The proposed site at Pershing Road and State Street near Guaranteed Rate Field, home of the White Sox, gets the most car traffic, a potential advantage if city officials and a casino owner opt to build a drive-in, drive-out facility that operates like a shopping mall. But the local alderman has issued a statement against putting the project in her ward.

The area around another site, the former Michael Reese Hospital, has the lowest crime rate of the five and sits closest to the McCormick Place convention center, widely considered a good spot from which to draw gamblers. Here, too, the local alderman has said, in effect, "no dice," calling the possibility of a casino in the historic African American neighborhood of Bronzeville "appalling and offensive."

The area around the Harborside site on the Far South Side has the lowest population density of the five contenders and is the closet to northwest Indiana's casinos, including those just over the border in Hammond. In this case, the local alderman wants the project, saying it would generate jobs and economic development.

Annual casino revenues in the Chicago area already stand at nearly $2 billion, making this the nation's third-largest gambling market after Las Vegas and Atlantic City, according to the American Gaming Association.

Full Story: https://www.chicagotribune.com/busin...htmlstory.html