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River West, Chicago

Bally's Chicago Casino Gets a $22.6 million Permit for Its Riverwalk and Park

Chicago issued a $22.6 million permit on October 16 for the riverwalk, park and landscaping at Bally's $1.7 billion casino on the old Tribune printing plant site, and the permit trail puts $580 million on the casino's interior buildout.

By Morningline Research · October 23, 2026

Chicago issued a building permit on October 16 for the riverfront at Bally's casino, the $1.7 billion project rising on the old Chicago Tribune printing plant site along the Chicago River in Illinois. The permit covers "landscaping, park, and riverwalk for adjacent casino, hotel, and event center." Its reported value is $22.6 million.

That's the outdoor half of the job. Inside, the work is already well along.

A permit for every piece

Timeline of permits and milestones for Bally's Chicago, from the February 2025 site plan approval to the October 2026 riverwalk permit and an early 2027 target opening
Graphic: Morningline Research, from City of Chicago building permits and reporting by Construction Dive, Urbanize Chicago, Yogonet and Chicago Construction News.

The city has permitted the casino in layers. The biggest by far came on March 19: the interior buildout of "new 7-story casino, parking, and event center building and 34-story hotel tower," reported at $580 million. Urbanize Chicago reported that permit when it was issued but gave no value, and we haven't seen the figure in other coverage.

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That permit text reads like a map of the whole build. Caissons and piles went under one permit. Excavation, grade beams and the tower core went under another. The concrete hotel tower, the steel and concrete casino and parking structure, and the core and shell each have their own. Urbanize reported the core and shell permit for the casino and hotel in August 2025.

Then the tenant spaces started. A July 20 permit covers the first build-out of a spa on level 5, reported at $3.9 million. An August 5 permit adds a cafe and food prep area on level 1 at $540,000. A July 22 permit, at $2.2 million, covers retaining walls next to the casino, event center and hotel tower.

Permit values are estimates filed with the city, not contract amounts.

From printing presses to a riverfront

The brick Chicago Tribune building at Halsted Street, with a Halsted Street sign and traffic lights in front, May 2025
The Chicago Tribune Freedom Center at Chicago Avenue and Halsted Street, May 2025. Photo: AlphaBeta135, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (cropped).

The casino anchors a 30-acre redevelopment of the Tribune's Freedom Center, the paper's former printing plant, Construction Dive reported. The site sits in River West, with Chicago Avenue to the north and Halsted Street to the west.

The plans call for a seven-story casino, a 500-room hotel tower, a 3,000-seat theater, six restaurants and a food hall, according to Urbanize. The riverfront piece is a 2-acre public park and a riverwalk extension of about 2,000 feet running south from Chicago Avenue to the lower riverbank. Construction Dive reported the city's site plan approval in February 2025, when demolition of the old plant was "nearly complete."

Crews topped off the casino on April 30. Bally's chairman Soo Kim called it "the end of the beginning," Yogonet reported. The company expects about 3,000 permanent jobs, and Mayor Brandon Johnson said the complex is expected to bring the city more than $100 million in new revenue a year.

What opens first

About 1,000 tradespeople are on the site, Kim said in September, according to Chicago Construction News. Bally's says the casino is on track to open in early 2027.

After the city legalized video gaming terminals, Bally's said it would re-sequence about 12% of the project, the non-gaming pieces, and told the City Council's License Committee on September 9 that it will open with "the event center, 100 rooms of the hotel and the required food and beverage components," the Chicago Sun-Times reported. The rest of the 500 rooms come later.

Where the numbers differ

The records and the coverage don't always match. The March permit calls the hotel a 34-story tower, the same height Construction Dive reported in 2025. The July and August permits describe a "36-floor hotel & casino building." Urbanize counts about 3,300 slot machines; Bally's, as reported by Yogonet, says 3,400.

The address differs too. City permits file the work under 705 W. Chicago Ave. Bally's and Chicago Construction News give the casino's address as 560 W. Grand Ave.

How we count

Permits come from the City of Chicago's building permit records for 705 W. Chicago Ave., issued November 2025 through October 2026. Values are the valuations reported on the permits, not contract amounts. Trade permits are not counted separately. Project details and company names come from the news coverage linked here.

See all of Chicago's latest permit numbers, updated weekly.

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