From financial albatross to economic engine: City Council turns Michael Reese site into $4 billion development

In 2008, the City Council borrowed $85 million to buy the shuttered hospital, hoping to put an Olympic athletes village there for the 2016 Games.

“This is a mega-development that will truly impact the entire city — and, of course, the Bronzeville and Douglas community more specifically.

A Bronzeville welcoming center with a digital museum” funded partly through a 50-cents-per-square-foot impact fee, the alderman said.

The infrastructure work must be designed, engineered and completed to city standards within three years at a cost of no more than $60 million.

But it never was built, and the price of the property rose to $91 million after the city’s stunning first-round knockout in its bid for the 2016 Summer Games.

And the Michael Reese property — cleared of all buildings except the 72,800 square-foot Singer Pavilion — has remained vacant and a drain on the city’s taxpayers.

Hendricks left Wednesday’s game against the Cardinals trailing by a run, but his teammates bailed him out.

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