Chicago-based real-estate developer Sterling Bay has announced a new entertainment component to their Lincoln Yards project. A week after joining forces with Cubs Chairman Tom Ricketts to bring a new soccer team to Chicago, the partnership with Live Nation would create a new event and recreation district on the city’s near-northwest side.
The plan calls for the construction of multiple entertainment venues within the development along the north branch of the Chicago River between the Lincoln Park and Bucktown neighborhoods, with Live Nation—the concert and entertainment juggernaut that merged with Tickemaster in 2010—acting as exclusive entertainment partner. The venues would host a curated, year-round calendar of events and be available to corporate partners and the community when they are not in use for entertainment and recreational purposes. Sterling Bay will announce corporate partners in the coming months.
“We are thrilled to be executing on such a unique project,” said Andy Gloor, managing principal at Sterling Bay. “Chicago already has a reputation as an entertainment hub and we are excited for the community to have easy access to a variety of new events with some of the biggest names in music.”
“Across Chicago we are witnessing an unparalleled amount of growth and development that contribute to the vibrancy and vitality of our great city,” said Mayor Rahm Emanuel. “There is an unprecedented amount of enthusiasm for promising projects springing up on the banks of the Chicago River, and I am looking forward to the next steps in the community-driven process that will help write the future of North Branch area development for years to come.”
Lincoln Yards is Sterling Bay’s ambitious mixed-use project that would create a new neighborhood on 70 acres along the North Branch of the Chicago River. Pitched as a location for Amazon’s HQ2, the development will include office and residential uses, along with hotels, restaurants, a six-acre park, a soccer stadium and an expansion of the city’s 606 Trail. The developer is in discussions to add a light rail component that would connect the area to the Loop.