A special committee of the Chicago City Council is go under to accept a voter turnout this week – perhaps as ahead of time as Mon – on whether to O.K. the arrangement metropolis leaders hold in put with Bally’s Corp. for a $1.7 1000000000000 casino inwards America’s third-largest city. Should that ballot succeed, the replete(p) council would and so likely voting Wednesday.

That timeline was laid come out during a more than three-hour get together Friday of the special committee. The commission recessed and testament re-start its session at 1 pm CT Mon to uphold talks on the project with representatives from Windy City Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration and Bally’s.

Our hope is to get further discourse and a balloting upward or downwards on the cassino lawmaking that’s before us… We’re sledding to seek to catch the legal age of put to work done on Mon working inwards concert with City Council, so that on Wednesday, when we get our urban center council meeting, the (legislation) will be brought upwards for a vote by the city council,” Alderman Tom Tunney, the special committee’s chair, explained to the committee members on Friday.

The citizens committee would potential ballot on ii items. First would follow an ordinance amending Windy City urban center law of nature to appropriate cassino gaming inwards the city. The 2d would follow a declaration regarding the innkeeper arrangement between the metropolis and Bally’s.

If the City Council signs turned on the agreement, Bally’s coating will then turn before the Land of Lincoln Gaming Board (IGB) for the state federal agency to count the keep company for licensure. The city’s work on on approbative zoning changes would also commence.

“We want to appropriate the manipulator to defer their applications programme to the IGB as shortly as possible inwards monastic order to bang our milestones for gap and revenue generation,” Chicago CFO Jennie Huang Bennett told the citizens committee on Friday.

A temporary casino with almost 800 expansion slot machines is expected to undecided next year, depending on(p) on licensure from the IGB. The lasting gambling casino is expected to unfastened inwards 2026. It would put up 3,400 expansion slot machines and 170 tabular array games, making it the largest casino inwards Illinois.

Lightfoot’s Office Wants $40M ASAP

Another reason wherefore Lightfoot is pushing for ready musical passage is the city’s financial need, according to comments Bennett made Friday.

Once Bally’s signs the agreement, it testament dedicate the city a one-time storage allocation of $40 million. That money will depart toward the city’s pensions, Floyd Bennett said. That testament also help mitigate what’s expected to follow what she said was at to the lowest degree a $300 meg shortfall inward the upcoming budget.

Taxes on cassino gaming revenues will move toward the city’s pensions for firefighters and police officers. That’s expected to extend about 9% of the city’s consignment to those plans. Beyond the tax money, Bally’s testament also springiness the city $4 one thousand thousand annually, and that money will live used for public refuge and other civic needs.

Samir Mayekar, Chicago’s lieutenant city manager for economical and neighbourhood development, told the citizens committee that the casino’s boilers suit economic wallop to the urban center will go past $2 1000000000000 annually. That includes the 3,000 construction jobs and 3,000 permanent jobs the gambling casino will generate.

It’s expected that the council testament living the city’s agreement. However, some residential groups whose neighborhoods are confining to the casino’s proposed permanent location at the Windy City Tribune printing plant, make raised concerns nigh how a casino would move public safety, traffic, and holding values.

Through May 14, the River North Residents Association has received to a greater extent than 2,750 responses to its neighbourhood survey. Nearly 82 percent of the community’s residents “strongly oppose” the throw at the Tribune site.

Kathy Smith, a Windy City occupier who lives crosswise the Chicago River from the Tribune site, said people living inwards the region don’t finger safe as it is and that adding an attracter lot to make for thousands to a greater extent on a day-by-day foundation will only if get it worse.

“This has all been said before and, frankly, has fallen on deaf ears,” she said.

Bally’s Financial Strength Questioned

While much of the opponent has been targeted on the location of the casinos – the $70 jillion temporary gambling casino at the Medinah Temple – there are some on the citizens committee who interrogative whether the metropolis made the right on selection from a business concern perspective.

Alderman Brian Hopkins, a council fellow member whose hospital ward surrounds but does not hold the proposed lasting site, has called on the committee to come its due industriousness on the project. He criticized the program to ballot this hebdomad as an “artificial clip pressure” with “a blizzard of documents” beingness tossed around at decision time.

Hopkins also raised questions almost Bally’s financial strength and its ability to establish a casino of this size. While the companion has 14 casinos crossways the country, most of its development has occurred through acquisitions

We could proceed into business concern with just nigh anyone inward the gaming manufacture hither because of what we’re offering… We could follow more selective, and we could feel a business sector partner that doesn’t feature these concerns,” the alderman said Friday. “Their unsecured debt is really valued redress at present at 80 cents on the dollar.”

Bennett noted that Bally’s has $1.7 1000000000 cash on hand and provided letters of reinforcement from financial firms. That, positive the findings from an extraneous consultant gives the urban center leaders confidence they experience the correct partner.

Bally’s vanquish come out proposals from Hard John Rock International and Benjamin Rush Street Gaming to go the city’s preferred casino partner.