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Chicago, IL

The Chicago Fire's McDonald's Park Gets Its Permit to Close In the Stadium

Chicago, Illinois issued a $94 million enclosure permit on Oct. 20 for McDonald's Park, the Chicago Fire's privately funded soccer stadium at 1331 S. Wells St. in the South Loop. It is the fourth phase permit for the stadium since March.

By Morningline Research · October 26, 2026

On Oct. 20, the City of Chicago issued a permit to enclose McDonald's Park, the 22,000-seat soccer stadium the Chicago Fire are building at 1331 S. Wells St. in the South Loop. The permit carries a reported value of $94 million. Its scope is the outside of the building: an "enclosure only permit for a 4-story stadium," with "no MEP work."

That makes four phase permits in seven months, each one handing off to the next. The club says the stadium will cost $750 million, all of it paid for by owner Joe Mansueto.

Seven months, four permits

Timeline of the permits and milestones for McDonald's Park at 1331 S. Wells St.
Graphic: Morningline Research, from City of Chicago building permits and the reporting linked in this story.

The Fire broke ground on March 3, Construction Dive reported. The city's records show the building coming together in order from there.

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The first permit, issued March 20, covered piles only, at a reported $5 million. A shallow-foundations permit followed on April 24 at $15.4 million. In August the city approved a revision to the pile permit that added piles, changed pile types and lowered the pile caps.

The big one came on June 3. That's the superstructure permit, for "a proposed 4-story stadium with no basement on piles," reported at $102 million. Permits for two tower cranes came through that spring, and a construction trailer permit lists 16 trailers on site for two years.

The Oct. 20 enclosure permit is the latest in the chain. It names the pile, foundation and superstructure permits that came before it. Mechanical, electrical and plumbing work is left out of it, and we haven't seen a permit for that work at this address yet.

Permit values are estimates filed with the city, not contract amounts. The four phase permits come in well under the $750 million the club has announced, and no source we read breaks down what the permits cover against the full budget.

A rail yard that sat empty for decades

Wells Street running south through The 78 in July 2026, with a tower crane and construction work on the left and the Chicago River on the right
Wells Street through The 78, July 2026. Photo: AlphaBeta135, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (cropped).

The stadium is the first big building at The 78, the 62-acre riverfront site at Roosevelt and Clark that Related Midwest is developing. The stadium takes up about 9 acres of it, WBEZ reported.

The land has a long list of plans that never got built. WBEZ noted it was once owned by Tony Rezko and was considered for Amazon's second headquarters, and a White Sox ballpark plan for the site never got past the drawing board. The stadium is the one that's going up.

It's also a first for the city in a long while. Construction Dive called it the first major professional stadium built in Chicago "in more than three decades." The Fire play at Soldier Field today, according to Front Office Sports, which puts the stadium inside a larger $8 billion development.

The price has moved since the plan was announced. WBEZ reported in June 2025 that Mansueto agreed to spend $650 million of his own money. By groundbreaking the figure was $750 million, and a club spokesperson told Construction Dive the first number was "an early estimate which has been amended as plans progressed."

Concrete now, steel by New Year's

In May the club sold the naming rights. The stadium will be McDonald's Park under a deal that runs through 2040, Fox 32 Chicago reported. Fox 32 said it's the company's first naming deal for a U.S. professional sports venue. Terms weren't disclosed.

In June, Urbanize Chicago reported the foundation work was complete and the superstructure permit had cleared the way for the stadium to start going up.

By late September, the concourse was being poured. "The foundation is set. The concrete is being poured for the concourse," Ted Glick, a club executive, told ABC7 Chicago. "By the end of this year, steel will rise," he said. ABC7 reported the stadium will have 600 heated premium seats across three club areas, and that about 20% of the premium seats have already sold.

The opening date reads a little differently depending on who's telling it. Urbanize reported the stadium will open for the 2028 MLS regular season, while ABC7 said summer 2028.

Part of a stadium wave

Chicago isn't building alone. Six MLS clubs moved into soccer-specific stadiums between 2021 and 2025, Front Office Sports reported, and New York City FC's $780 million, 25,000-seat stadium in Queens is due in 2027, a year ahead of the Fire.

Baseball is on the same track. On Oct. 23, Construction Dive reported that the Kansas City Royals picked an owner's representative for a 34,000-seat, $1.9 billion ballpark at the center of a $3 billion development, with groundbreaking expected in 2027.

In Chicago, the next permit to watch at 1331 S. Wells is the one for the stadium's mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems.

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

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More numbers: Chicago, IL building permit activity, updated weekly.