Onni is poised to take command of a Chicago Avenue web site that was slated to be redeveloped before the pandemic. Riverside and the property’s longtime owner, Tribune Media, received Town Council approval in 2018 to demolish a vacant 115,000-sq.-foot industrial creating on the web page and create a four-tower place of work and residential intricate. That was section of the eyesight for a much larger megaproject recognized as the River District, which Tribune Media pitched as a potential dwelling to Amazon’s HQ2 throughout the e-commerce giant’s high-profile 2018 search. Nexstar joined the combine in 2019 when it acquired Tribune Media.

But COVID transformed everything. With need for places of work pummeled from the rise of distant do the job, Riverside and Nexstar previous year explained they have been supplying up on their prepare for the sophisticated. Meanwhile, Bally’s submitted a bid previous yr to construct a on line casino on the 30-acre web site south of the property. That parcel is now property to the Chicago Tribune’s Freedom Middle printing plant and would have been the centerpiece of the River District. The Bally’s bid is one particular of a few finalist sites the town is taking into consideration for its initially on line casino and could be introduced as the winner this week.

Bally’s has claimed it would get the Liberty Centre home from Nexstar if its bid is chosen and that it would use the 700 W. Chicago property—a former Tribune advertising insertion plant that ceased functions in 2012—as a momentary on line casino though Bally’s constructed its long term one particular. That would delay Onni’s prepared redevelopment of the web page, although it can be unclear how that would affect the pending sale of the property to Onni.

Onni gained Town Council approval final summer time for its Goose Island challenge, which would be developed on a former Greyhound bus upkeep facility at 901 N. Halsted St. In addition to the initially-ever flats on Goose Island, the undertaking is slated to include things like a 300-room hotel and 1,400 parking areas.