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ILLINOIS
Chicago Amphitheater Gets a Fresh Start
ARAMARK’s largest and most sophisticated laundry facility recently opened on a redeveloped brownfield where the Chicago International Amphitheater once stood.
In the early 1900s, the 12-acre parcel was part of the Union Stock Yards. The International Amphitheater, constructed in the 1930s, was the site of a 1964 Beatles concert and the 1968 Democratic National Convention. After the Amphitheater sat vacant for several years, the City of Chicago took ownership in 1996, and demolished the buildings in 1999.
Redevelopment of the property as a laundry facility was complicated by the presence of an old electric transformer building containing PCBs, below-grade concrete tunnels and trenches containing asbestos, and old fill material contaminated with petroleum constituents and heavy metals such as lead.
BT2 Environmental Engineering and Science led the $1.5 million contaminant
remediation project that was funded jointly by ARAMARK and The City of Chicago,
under a 2002 redevelopment agreement. The redevelopment project addressed the
remaining environmental contamination, and revitalized a landmark property within
city limits.