As the owners of two Chicago sports franchises near approval to break ground on a $7 billion mixed-use development around the United Center, the arena’s owners are expanding their already sprawling portfolio of parking lots on the Near West Side.
A venture of the United Center’s owners, the Wirtz and Reinsdorf families, on Dec. 31 paid almost $22.7 million combined for several surface lots near the arena on West Madison Street, according to Cook County property records and CoStar data.
The seller was an affiliate of Chicago-based Red Top Parking.
Those land purchases were the latest in a decades-long process through which the Reinsdorf family, which owns the NBA’s Chicago Bulls, and the Wirtz family, which owns the NHL’s Chicago Blackhawks, have assembled a sea of surface lots in the blocks that surround the arena that opened in 1994.
The recent acquisitions came about five months after the owners of the Bulls and Blackhawks, who share ownership of the arena where both teams play, first announced plans for a $7 billion development around the arena.
In new details unveiled this week, the team owners said the 1901 Project would bring a new music hall and as many as 9,463 residential units and 1,309 hotel rooms to the neighborhood over the next 15 years, along with parks and other amenities.
The first construction phase is expected to include a 6,000-seat music hall, 233-room hotel, parking structures, retail and a park. After that phase is completed by 2028, several residential towers are to follow.
The 1901 Project, named for the arena’s address at 1901 W. Madison St., won approval from the Chicago Plan Commission after a presentation Thursday. That is one of the final steps toward a sign-off of the full City Council, which would allow the project to break ground this year.
Red Top Parking owner Dolores Secor could not be reached for comment by CoStar News, and the United Center owners declined to comment about the deals on Thursday.
“This partnership between the two families and our neighbors will uplift the neighborhood and deliver opportunity and generational change,” Terry Savarise, executive vice president and CEO of the United Center, said in a statement about the plan’s approval Thursday. “We look forward to the next steps to bring this shared vision to life."
Before the 1901 Project was announced, Chicagoans for years had wondered if the team owners eventually would redevelop the portfolio of surface lots.
Early last year, the Chicago Sun-Times reported that the United Center owners had spent more than $44 million buying parking lots over the previous 19 months, including some previously owned by Red Top.
In the deals to end 2024, the arena owners added lots at and around 1700-1718 W. Monroe St., 1757 W. Warren Blvd., 1851-1857 W. Adams St., 2012 W. Madison St. and 2046 W. Madison.