Ald. Nicole Lee wants full-fledged environmental review of Amtrak planned maintenance facility in Bridgeport

Ald. Nicole Lee on Thursday demanded a full-blown environmental review of Amtrak’s proposed maintenance facility in Bridgeport, claiming the assessment promised this week by the Federal Railroad Administration appears to be confined to a dozen local viaducts.

“I speak on behalf of my community, in that we don’t trust the Federal Railroad Administration to grade its own paper,” Lee said (11th).

Lee, Cook County Commissioner John Daley and their constituents are embroiled in a high-stakes battle to block Amtrak from moving its maintenance facility from the South Loop to Bridgeport in a move that could set the stage for the White Sox to leave Rate Field.

Canal Edge LLC — a company owned by White Sox owner-in-waiting Justin Ishbia — has proposed a mixed-use development called the Railyards that would move the Sox to the South Loop site currently occupied by Amtrak’s riverfront maintenance facility between Roosevelt Road and 18th Street.

Ishbia is helping to finance Amtrak’s move to Bridgeport to free up the South Loop site for a new Sox stadium.

That plan has touched off a political firestorm, in part, because Amtrak received more than $600 million and a “categorical exclusion” from the federal government for the project. That allowed Amtrak to move forward without a full environmental assessment or an environmental impact statement “unless there are extraordinary circumstances.”

Earlier this week, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) promised a federal environmental review.

Lee said the review will give her constituents “a little bit more time, which is good." But the review the FRA promised appears to be confined to “dozen or so viaducts that would need work between Archer Avenue and 39th Street to help this project move along," she said.

“That’s how I read it. I’m asking for clarification. And if it is specifically for the viaducts, then it’s even less valuable,” Lee said told the Sun-Times. “If they are not also doing an environmental assessment on the full construction of the project, then we'll proceed with our challenge of their categorical exclusion.”

Several mayoral candidates — including U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley, retiring Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza, Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias and lobbyist John Kelly — have joined the fight to block the Amtrak facility.

But Lee said Mayor Brandon Johnson “has not taken a firm stand in opposition” to the project. The incumbent mayor has simply said the community “deserves answers and needs to be properly engaged,” she said.

“The city of Chicago absolutely should be behind us… They’re railroading, pun intended, our community to push this through,” Lee said.

“This is a community that has been very burdened… for many years and decades. How much more are we expected to sacrifice with a 24/7 maintenance operations that’s only going to get busier over time? The whole reason why they want a new facility is because they want increased capacity.”

At an event hosted by Crain’s Chicago Business in mid-October, Ishbia pitched the proposed Sox stadium in the South Loop as an “amazing opportunity to connect” downtown and the South Loop and “make it one whole downtown community.”

But Ishbia said the final decision on where the Sox play would be made by Jerry Reindorf, the 90-year-old White Sox chairman whose pitch to build taxpayer-funded stadium for the Sox at the South Loop parcel known as “the 78” went nowhere.

Lee is determined to convince Reinsdorf to stay in Bridgeport at a new stadium on the site of Rate Field.

She’s hoping that a Hail Mary plan to build a Bears stadium on the Rate Field site will convince Reinsdorf that state-owned land on 35th Street around the ballpark could be developed into a year-round neighborhood not unlike what the Ricketts family has managed to achieve around Wrigley Field.

“We know that modern-day sports team owners want things like an entertainment district. They want to have control over those things, and I think that there's a lot that's possible on the site. I'm ready to have the conversation with him,” Lee said.

“I do think that having the [Bears stadium] proposal… gets lots of people thinking, including Jerry Reinsdorf, about what's possible on the South Side on the current footprint… We want the White Sox to stay right where they are. That would be the biggest win: not to have Amtrak move their maintenance facility and to keep the White Sox. We're gonna continue to do whatever we can to appeal to the Sox to stay and fight with everything that we've got to keep Amtrak out."