• Share
• E-Mail
• Print

A Near South Side alderman who's mulling a race for mayor proposed Tuesday that McCormick Place East be converted into a giant, but temporary, casino and that Chicago begin the search for a permanent gambling site.

Ald. Robert Fioretti (2nd) mentioned the 37-acre campus that formerly housed Michael Reese Hospital, the old Chicago Post Office and 67 acres of vacant land at Roosevelt and Clark once owned by convicted businessman and Rod Blagojevich fund-raiser Tony Rezko as possible sites for a permanent casino.

But, Fioretti is not prepared to wait for construction of a permanent casino to stop the parade of gamblers and tax revenues flowing to Indiana casinos.

That's why he's talking about turning the underutilized McCormick Place East building known as Lakeside Center into a temporary casino, assuming he can convince the General Assembly to go along.

"We could probably have a land-based casino up and running within 90 days to six months because the infrastructure is there. All it will require are the cameras and working with the Gaming Board," he said.

During a luncheon address to the City Club of Chicago, Fioretti argued that a northwest Indiana casino located 30 minutes from downtown Chicago raked in $50 million in tax revenue during the month of July alone with a healthy chunk of that revenue coming from Illinois residents.

"Gaming … continues to have its share of controversy. But folks, let's face it. We are losing a significant amount of revenue. … The numbers of dollars … going into Indiana down that Dan Ryan - we could have a blockade there. I believe that people would come from all around the country to use a land-based casino here," he said.

Fioretti said he has not yet decided whether to join the crowded field to replace Mayor Daley.

But, he sure sounded like a candidate when he demanded that the lame-duck mayor begin the search for Chicago's next police superintendent immediately instead of waiting until March 1, when the $310,000-a-year contract of embattled Supt. Jody Weis expires.

"We need somebody to bring up the morale of this department that is so low right now - that is at the lowest level it's ever probably been," the alderman said, reiterating his demand for the hiring of 1,000 more police officers. without saying how he planned to pay for it.

Fioretti also outlined in broad strokes how he would rein in city spending and erase a record $654.7 million shortfall that, he expects, will only get worse in 2012.

He talked about using tax credits to lure manufacturing jobs to Chicago and about eliminating unnecessary government agencies, adding, "If we cut 'em by one-third, nobody would know they're gone."

The alderman also proposed using a grid system to collect garbage, instead of assigning crews on a ward-by-ward basis.

"Too many man-hours and too much gas money is wasted as drivers are forced to traverse gerry-mandered ward [boundaries] and drive from one end of the ward to another," he said.

The Chicago Sun-Times reported last fall that McCormick Place East needs $100 million worth of maintenance and repairs - casting doubt on the long-term future of a lakefront building Daley once called a "Berlin Wall" that ruined the Chicago skyline.

The newspaper also reported that it costs $10.6 million-a-year just to maintain and operate Lakeside Center and that the building's 600,000 square feet of exhibition space is grossly under-utilized.

Daley bought the 37-acre campus that once housed Michael Reese Hospital for $86 million to make way for an Olympic Village and watched the price rise to $91 million after Chicago's stunning first-round knockout in the Olympic sweepstakes.

The mayor now wants to convert the site to a technology park, but feisty aldermen have other ideas.

As a newly-elected mayor, Daley opted out of the bill that created riverboat gambling, then spent the next 21 years flirting with the idea.

He was never able to get a bill through the Legislature, primarily because he could never agree on how much the city should pay for the license and how much revenue should be shared with the state.