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Redevelopment of Chicago’s Union Station is a long-held passion of the Metropolitan Planning Council. Situated in a prime West Loop location and serving more travelers each day than Midway Airport—its passenger concourse is at capacity—Union Station’s potential is enormous, yet many of its spaces remain underdeveloped and underused.
The former Women's Lounge is one of many vacant spaces at Union Station.
Cities like Denver, Toronto, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. have shown train terminals can be focal points for commercial redevelopment and attract new residents and businesses to the surrounding area.
Our goal is to transform Chicago Union Station into a truly great place: a vibrant destination, neighborhood and city asset and catalyst for regional economic growth. Join us for this MPC Roundtable to learn how that transformation is possible—and why Chicago has so much to gain from breathing new life into Union Station.
An optional behind-the-scenes tour of vacant and closed areas of Union Station will follow. The Roundtable concludes at 1:30. The tour will begin around 2 p.m., after the short walk from MPC to Union Station, and conclude around 3 p.m.
Speakers include:
- Ray Lang, chief of state government relations for Amtrak and president of Chicago Union Station Company, who is leading redevelopment of the station.
- Silvio Baldassarra, president of Canada operations at NORR, who has been in charge of the redevelopment of Toronto Union Station.
- Chris Bisaillon, owner of Bottleneck Management, which operates restaurants in Chicago and around the country, including in the historic Tribune Tower.
- Jeffrey Shapack, president of Shapack Partners, who has developed commercial real estate around Chicago, including Soho House Chicago and WeWork Fulton Market.
This event is sold out.
Registration is $15 for current MPC donors and $30 for all others. Lunch is included; please indicate any dietary restrictions when you order.
MPC thanks NORR for sponsoring this event.
