THE SOUTH LOOP (WBBM Newsradio) -- The clock has started for fans of the Chicago Fire soccer team, as city leaders joined team executives to break ground on the club's new stadium in the South Loop.
"Are you guys as excited as I am?" Chicago Fire Football Club owner Joe Mansueto asked an enthusiastic audience of hundreds of sponsors, season ticket holders and office-holders, who joined him and the team for Tuesday's ceremonial groundbreaking for the 22,000-seat stadium he's building at the corner of Roosevelt and Clark Streets.
The privately-funded $750 million stadium will serve as the anchor that developer Related Midwest has been seeking for a decade, as they envision a cluster of restaurants, bars, offices, shops and homes that they first branded as "The 78" after buying the parcel along the South Branch of the Chicago River in 2016.
"Every great team needs a home," Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said before taking part in the ceremony. "And every great city needs a place where communities can come together in celebration. And today, we launched the development of both."
When the stadium is completed in a projected two years, it will supplant Soldier Field as the Fire's home pitch, and Mansueto said he believes it will be a catalyst for the area: "The right model today to develop a neighborhood is to have a stadium as an anchor."
South Loop alderwoman Pat Dowell, whose ward includes The 78, said feedback from a series of community meetings helped determine parts of the development.
"This stadium is going to activate our riverfront and one day connect us to the riverwalk, connect us to (Chinatown's) Ping Tom Park, and connect us to the city as a whole," said Ald. Dowell (3rd Ward) before introducing Mayor Johnson.
Mansueto, the billionaire founder of the financial services firm Morningstar, said the stadium represents "a statement about ambition ... about pride."
"A stadium is not just a building, but it's a memory machine," Mansueto said, recalling his first-ever in-person sporting event: a White Sox win when he was eight years old. "Think of all the future memories that are gonna be created on these grounds."