South of Roosevelt Road, along the Chicago River, the Chicago Fire's new stadium has grown from a cleared rail yard into a concrete seating bowl in about seven months. When Chicago YIMBY visited on Oct. 9, the west tower crane was already gone. A yellow Liebherr tower crane still worked the east side, and a crawler crane handled the heavy lifting on the west. The outlet also noted that you can "kinda sorta see into the stadium in some places" through the fence line.
The bowl is the fast part. The streets, river wall, Metra work and public plaza that tie the 62-acre site to the rest of the South Loop run on a separate, public schedule. According to the city's own project packet, that work starts this quarter and finishes in the second quarter of 2031. For anyone who gets around near Roosevelt, Clark and Wells, the gap between those two schedules matters more than the crane count.
Seven months of stadium, five years of streets
The private side of The 78 has moved at a contractor's pace. The Fire broke ground in March on what the club calls a privately financed stadium for more than 22,000 spectators. WTTW put the price at $750 million. In May the club named the venue McDonald's Park and announced plans for a flagship McDonald's on site, plus year-round programming beyond soccer.
Here are the two schedules side by side:
- First week of June 2026. The west tower crane goes up along the river just south of Roosevelt Road.
- By Sept. 23, 2026. A second tower crane goes up, and stadium work moves east toward Clark Street.
- By Oct. 9, 2026. The west crane is already down, and concrete pours continue.
- Q4 2026. Construction starts on the public infrastructure, according to the city packet.
- 2028. The club's target for opening McDonald's Park, ahead of that MLS season.
- Q2 2031. Scheduled completion of the infrastructure.
The 2031 date covers the whole project. The packet doesn't schedule each road or the riverfront separately, so it doesn't say which pieces will be done when the first match kicks off. It does show that the public work runs about three years past the stadium's target.
What the $424.9 million actually builds
In July, City Council approved up to $424.9 million in tax increment financing reimbursements for The 78's public infrastructure. The city's announcement lists segments of LaSalle, 13th, 14th and 15th streets, Wells and Clark improvements, Roosevelt Road, on-site Metra tracks, the river wall, public open space and a city-owned garage with a plaza on top. The project packet breaks down the cost of each item:
| Component | Budget | Share of total |
|---|---|---|
| Public access structure and plaza over a 1,200-space city garage | $216.4M | 50.9% |
| LaSalle Street, Phases 1 and 2 | $58.4M | 13.7% |
| Metra improvements | $36.1M | 8.5% |
| River wall | $33.7M | 7.9% |
| 13th Street | $18.3M | 4.3% |
| Clark Street Pedestrian Connector, Phase 2 | $12.4M | 2.9% |
| 15th Street, Phase 2 | $12.3M | 2.9% |
| Clark Street improvements | $12.2M | 2.9% |
| 14th Street | $11.2M | 2.6% |
| Roosevelt Road improvements | $8.4M | 2.0% |
| Wells Street modifications | $5.5M | 1.3% |
About half the money goes to one structure, the garage with a plaza on its roof. All the new roads combined come to about $105.7 million, roughly a quarter of the total. The packet plans the plaza at about an acre and describes it as open to neighborhood-led events. The garage beneath it is meant to serve stadium crowds.
The edges that touch the existing South Loop get the smallest budgets. Roosevelt Road gets 2 percent and Wells Street 1.3 percent. According to City Bureau, backers say connecting the site to Roosevelt is necessary to draw more projects.
The riverfront has two different numbers
The packet uses two open-space figures, and they mean different things. As a binding covenant under the redevelopment agreement, the developer must build about 2.75 acres of new open and green space. In its long-term benefits section, the packet describes 6 acres of public open space, including half a mile of improved public riverfront with roadway, bikeway, waterway and pedestrian connections.
The 2.75 acres are required. The 6 acres and the half-mile of riverfront are the full plan. The river wall line item, $33.7 million, is the construction that lets the riverfront happen. The packet doesn't give a separate opening date for the riverwalk, so any walk along that stretch of river is scheduled only within the project-wide window that ends in 2031.
How you'll reach it depends on Wells and 13th
The connection between the site and the blocks residents already use has been planned longer than the stadium has existed. A 2018 traffic study for the Clark and Roosevelt site, coordinated with CDOT, described extending Wells Street south from Roosevelt Road to meet Wentworth Avenue, with bike lanes and parking lanes. That was a design concept, not a construction order. The 2026 packet budgets for "Wells Street Modifications" without restating the 2018 cross-section.
Game days are a separate question. In September 2025, Block Club Chicago reported on a traffic study for the stadium that proposed closing 13th Street and part of Wells Street on game days. Under that proposal, Wells between 15th and 18th streets would run as three lanes, using cones and parking restrictions to create a reversible center lane, with shuttles from off-site parking and coordination with CDOT and emergency management. 13th Street shows up twice, as an $18.3 million new road in the TIF budget and as a proposed game-day closure in the traffic plan. Both are still plans.
There's no posted street-by-street calendar, haul route or detour notice for the infrastructure work yet. The most recent public forum on The 78 was a June 23 town hall hosted by Ald. Pat Dowell's 3rd Ward office. The Fire, Related Midwest, the Department of Planning and Development and CDOT all took part, and residents asked questions about the TIF and the infrastructure. With construction starting this quarter, the ward office is the most likely place for detour notices and the next meeting to appear.
Where the money comes from, and who asked for more
The financing has drawn debate at City Hall. According to City Bureau, the funds will come from the nearby Canal/Congress and Roosevelt/Clark TIF districts. Ald. Bill Conway of the 34th Ward questioned whether drawing on Canal/Congress would leave enough for upkeep of Union Station, Ogilvie Transportation Center and the Greyhound station. Dowell, whose ward includes the site, made the case for the infrastructure in the same report: "We need density in this city, and that density is made possible through privately financed vertical development. We cannot achieve this without the necessary physical infrastructure."
The packet attaches covenants to the money, including 50 percent city residency and Illinois prevailing wage on construction, plus minimum M/WBE participation of 30 percent and 10 percent. Its long-term plan calls for up to 10,000 residential units across the site, with 20 percent designated affordable. At the March groundbreaking, WTTW reported that the Community Benefits Agreement for 78 Coalition, made up of 12 groups, was still asking for a legally binding community benefits agreement. The Fire's 2025 stadium announcement described year-round community events and a first phase with restaurants, storefronts and community spaces. It set a 2028 opening for the stadium but gave no separate timing for those first-phase spaces.
Meanwhile, at Soldier Field
The South Loop's other stadium is on a different track. The Bears have played at Soldier Field, owned by the Chicago Park District, since 1971. In August, team president Kevin Warren said the team's "sole focus" was a new stadium and mixed-use development in Hammond, Indiana. On Oct. 1, WTTW reported that Gov. JB Pritzker had met with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and state legislative leaders about keeping the team in Illinois. As of Oct. 19, the Chicago Sun-Times reported that Pritzker believed a deal could keep the Bears in Illinois, possibly in Chicago or Arlington Heights, though not at taxpayers' expense, and that the final decision belongs to the team.
For now, the lakefront calendar hasn't changed. Soldier Field's schedule has the Bears hosting Tampa Bay this Sunday, Nov. 8, then New Orleans on Nov. 22, Jacksonville on Dec. 6 and Green Bay on Dec. 25.
If you own near Roosevelt, Clark or Wells, the work scheduled between now and 2031 will change the streets you use every day. DeMarcus Hunter tracks the permits, the phasing and the sales near The 78, and he can show you how the work touches your block. Book a Consultation.
