DePaul University officials are still targeting a winter groundbreaking for a planned $173 million McCormick Place arena and new home for Blue Demons basketball.
Site clearing is underway and infrastructure work will follow for the arena and a planned hotel on Cermak Road west of the exposition complex.
“The coach house on the property has been moved, the (landmarked Harriet F.) Rees mansion is going to be moved in November and the bank that’s owned by the Cacciatore family is being reconstructed at 14th and Michigan,” Jean Lenti Ponsetto, DePaul’s athletic director, said during a pre-season basketball event this week. “They’re still saying first quarter of 2015 there will be a shovel in the ground.”
The project is expected to take around 22 months to complete.
The 10,000-seat near-South Side arena would bring DePaul basketball back to the city after a run of more than three decades at Allstate Arena (originally the Rosemont Horizon).
The new site is three miles south of DePaul’s downtown center and seven miles from the main Lincoln Park campus. The Blue Demon men’s current Rosemont home court is 15 mile northwest.
“We’re still feeling like — worst case — (opening) in time for the Big East season in 2017,” Lenti Ponsetto said. “(But) 2016-017 was what we were always shooting for. We were hoping for November (2016) but it could be that it’s later.”
Prior to moving to the Rosemont Horizon (now Allstate Arena) in 1980, the Blue Demons played at Alumni Hall, demolished in 2000 and replaced by a student center.
Lenti Ponsetto said the university recently extended its agreement with Allstate Arena through the 2016 season with some flexibility beyond.
“We haven’t talked about that because I don’t really know what the exact timetable is going to be,” she said.
Formally called the McCormick Place Events Center, the arena will be owned by the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority (McPier) and leased by DePaul for men’s and women’s basketball. Use for conventions, meetings, concerts and other events are also envisioned.
McPier and DePaul are each contributing around $70 million towards arena construction, according to reports published earlier this year.
