The 78 in the South Loop and What Comes Next

What The 78 actually is

If you have driven the Dan Ryan or taken the Red Line through the Near South Side, you have passed it: roughly 62 acres of vacant former railroad land along the South Branch of the Chicago River, wedged between the South Loop, Chinatown, and Pilsen. The developer Related Midwest has long pitched it as Chicago's next neighborhood, a name meant to make it the city's symbolic 78th community area. Per Related Midwest's own materials, the plan envisions up to roughly 13 million square feet of construction, about 12 acres of open space, a half-mile riverwalk, a new Red Line station near 15th Street, and thousands of homes with an affordable-housing commitment.

That is the vision. The reality, as of mid-2026, is a site that is still mostly raw land with a single confirmed building under construction and an anchor story that has been rewritten more than once. For a parcel this large and this central, that combination of enormous promise and slow, uneven delivery is exactly what makes it worth an honest look.

The anchor that left

For years the headline tenant at The 78 was the Discovery Partners Institute, a University of Illinois research and technology hub. It was slated to be the first project to break ground and the gravitational center the rest of the district would orbit.

Then, in October 2024, that plan came apart. ABC7 Chicago and Chicago YIMBY reported that the University of Illinois halted construction and the institute pulled out of building its bespoke headquarters at The 78. The bespoke building, planned at more than 200,000 square feet, was scrapped. As world-architects.com noted, even the designed headquarters tied to the site was canceled. Related Midwest CEO Curt Bailey put a brave face on it, telling reporters the departure opened up the possibility of something really spectacular instead. That is the optimistic read, and it is not wrong, but losing your anchor tenant after breaking ground is a real setback, and we will not pretend otherwise.

Where the research hub went instead

The institute did not disappear, it relocated. In early 2026 the University of Illinois System moved to buy 250 South Wacker Drive, a 16-story building across from Willis Tower, to house the Discovery Partners Institute downtown. The Chicago Sun-Times and Crain's Chicago Business reported the purchase at roughly 23.7 to 23.8 million dollars, with the university authorizing tens of millions more in renovations, and the deal closing in late February 2026.

So the research hub is real and moving forward. It is just not at The 78 anymore. That distinction matters for anyone weighing the South Loop site: the institutional anchor that once justified the district's timeline now sits in the West Loop, a couple of miles north. The 78 has to find a new reason to be.

A point of confusion worth clearing up

There is a separate quantum-computing megaproject in the Chicago headlines, and it is easy to conflate the two. They are not the same site. The Illinois Quantum and Microelectronics Park, anchored by the firm PsiQuantum, is rising on the former U.S. Steel South Works land on the Far South Side lakefront, not at The 78. The University of Chicago and PsiQuantum confirmed PsiQuantum broke ground there in late September 2025.

It is true the relocated Discovery Partners Institute has some connective tissue to the quantum effort, since the institute's broader work spans artificial intelligence and quantum technologies. But the physical quantum campus is a South Works project, miles away on the lake. The 78 is a riverfront South Loop project. If you own near one, do not let news about the other distort your sense of what is happening on your block. We wrote separately about the South Works quantum campus and its promise and tension if you want that picture in full.

What the site has gained, and what it still needs

The 78 is not standing still. In March 2026, Chicago Fire FC, the city, Major League Soccer, and Related Midwest broke ground at the site on a soccer stadium, reported as McDonald's Park, with the team aiming to open its 2028 season there. Multiple outlets, including FOX 32 Chicago and NBC Chicago, covered the stadium as the first major vertical piece of the district. A privately funded stadium is a meaningful anchor: it brings crowds, transit demand, and a reason for restaurants and housing to follow.

But a stadium is event-driven. It fills the site dozens of days a year, not every day. The original promise of The 78 was a 24/7 neighborhood: people living, working, and walking the riverwalk on an ordinary Tuesday, not just on match nights. CoStar and others have reported that Related Midwest has been studying modifications to its plans in response to shifting market conditions before committing fully to phase one. That is prudent. It is also a signal that the everyday-neighborhood part of the vision is still being figured out.

• Confirmed and moving: a privately funded Chicago Fire stadium, broken ground March 2026, targeting the 2028 season.
• Departed: the Discovery Partners Institute, the original research anchor, now headed to 250 South Wacker downtown.
• Still pending: the housing, the riverwalk, the new Red Line station near 15th Street, and the daily foot traffic that turns a stadium district into an actual neighborhood.

Our take on what the South Loop site should become

Here is our opinion, offered as an investor-led team that watches this market closely and has no stake in the development itself. The loss of the research anchor is not the tragedy it first looked like. It frees The 78 from being a single-institution campus and lets it become what the South Loop genuinely lacks: housing at real scale, close to downtown, on transit, along a river. Chicago does not need another office-heavy district in 2026, when downtown is still working through vacancy. It needs places for people to live.

So our read is that the site should lean hard into housing, including the affordable component already promised, with the stadium as an amenity rather than the identity. Build the Red Line station early, because transit is what makes density humane. Get the riverwalk in before the towers, because public space is what makes people choose a new neighborhood over a proven one. A stadium plus thousands of homes plus a finished riverwalk plus a train stop is a neighborhood. A stadium surrounded by surface lots and stalled phases is just a venue.

For owners and investors in the South Loop, Chinatown, and Pilsen, the practical point is this: The 78 is a long-horizon catalyst, and the catalyst just changed shape. If you own nearby and want a candid read on what your specific property is worth as this story evolves, that is exactly the kind of question we help owners think through. You can see what we do and have a straight conversation, with no pressure to act.