Demolition begins Tuesday for Bally's casino at former Tribune publishing site

CHICAGO (CBS) — The future Bally's casino in Chicago took a big step forward Tuesday, as crews began tearing down the former Chicago Tribune Freedom Center printing plant where the casino complex will be built.

The new $1.7 billion casino and hotel complex will be built at the site of the former printing facility at Halsted Street and Chicago Avenue.

Bally's Corporation Chairman Soo Kim and Ald. Walter Burnett (27th) were among those who ceremonially smashed stacks of bricks with large golden hammers Tuesday morning, before the start of the demolition of the Freedom Center officially began.

Construction of the new Bally's starts soon after. This 30-acre riverfront hotel and casino facility will open in the fall of 2026.

In July, Bally's announced it had entered into a $940 million deal with Gaming and Leisure Properties Inc. , a real estate investment trust, for essential funding for its casino.

The future casino will include a 500-room hotel tower, a 3,000-seat theater and six restaurants.

"We're really excited to put something here that befits Chicago as a whole. Obviously, River West matches River North and Fulton Market. I think what we have planned for you is just fantastic, and it's going to make everyone proud," Kim said.

Once the casino is open, Bally's expects 4 million people a year—a four-fold increase from what they see at the temporary site at River North's Medinah Temple.

"This is larger than a museum, larger than Wrigley in terms the amount of people that are going to be coming in and out of here—500 room hotel," said Kim. "It's just a massive undertaking."

Kim explained the demolition of the Freedom Center was pushed back after it was discovered construction caissons used to anchor the forthcoming casino hotel would have punctured city water lines underground. This led to the hotel being moved from the Chicago Avenue side of the project farther south, closer to Grand Avenue.

"It's almost the same design, but almost just like reversed this way," Kim said.

Putting people to work on the project is something that is important to Ald. Burnett, whose ward includes the casino site, and called the project "personal."

"If my folks don't eat, nobody eats. So if Cabrini Green people don't get to work on this site, there will be no more development in the 27th Ward until I'm satisfied," he said.

Burnett said he will hold up over $1 billion in local projects for his ward if his residents looking for good work are not given a shot.

"I know what leverage is, Burnett said. "This is called leverage."

How will Burnett know if locals have been properly put to work?

"If contractors, developers, and union workers want to get more work in the future, they have to figure it out," Burnett said. "They'll come up with a good metric that will satisfy me."

As future projects hinge on what happens at the Bally's site now, and Bally's has made good on a groundbreaking not everyone thought was a sure thing.

"We told you we'd do it," Kim said. "We're excited to do it."

The casino project will cost $1.7 billion. Bally's said it will create 3,000 construction jobs, then employ 3,000 more workers once the casino is open—with thousands of table games and slot machines.

The Freedom Center, designed by the famed architectural firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, opened in 1981. As described by Open House Chicago, 1-ton rolls of newsprint were shipped into the Freedom Center by train and truck and stacked in a warehouse, before being loaded onto 10 large offset web printing presses, where cylinders made up of aluminum plates and rubber covers transferred on the ink.

In addition to the Tribune itself, the Chicago Sun-Times, The New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal also used the Freedom Center for their printing operations.

Before the Freedom Center opened, the Chicago Tribune printed its papers right at its headquarters at Tribune Tower, 435 N. Michigan Ave. The Tribune left Tribune Tower behind in 2018, and ended up moving its offices and newsroom to the Freedom Center after a few years in rented space at One Prudential Plaza.

The Tribune is now printed at a plant in Schaumburg.