CTA puts out 'for sale' sign

For commuters looking to buy a home or start a business near a transit line, the Chicago Transit Authority may have just the deal.

[Pete]

And what great timing, right as the real estate market collapses. Does the CTA strive to screw up absolutely everything it does?

[john williams]

This is too funny. The CTA's timing in entering the real estate market is about as good as the on time performance of its busses and trains.

[Screamer]

A few of those properties (the ones on ctarealestate.com with pictures) look like they're former electrical substations (for the third rail), built in the early part of the 20th century by predecessors of the CTA and possibly historic in some way. Might be something worthy of preservation.

[WhyCryNow]

Jones, Lang, LaSalle ?
Ask Amtrak (NRPC) about them and
how they mis-managed Chicago Union
Station.

[He has to go]

One can only presume that Jones Lang LaSalle is "owed" some business by the city. Another deal by the Daley administration that is not in the best interest of the citizens.

[Phil]

The St. Louis Metro system is doing the same thing down here. Most of the properties are not that great, so they wouldn't fetch good prices in a decent real estate market. Who wants to live right below a noisy train or bus depot?

[Edgewater]

What about all of the blighted, vacant storefronts the CTA owns at the base of the Wilson El? Strangely enough, those aren't included here.

That probably has nothing to do with 46th Ward Alderman Shiller, right?

[Puhleease]

The Wilson station is in line to be rehabbed.

[Ken Kball]

Good question, I'm also curious as to why the Uptown CTA properties aren't on this list.

[dmz]

So the land the CTA purchased through eminent domain to build the "el" will now lease that land to the highest bidder instead of to the residential property the land was originally taken from? You can't fix stupid, so the CTA will remain broke(n) and inefficient.

While hardworking people in the private sector lose jobs, they are still on the hook to pay for lazy employees in the public sector. CTA: start by removing 1500 jobs!!!

[Uptown voter]

The empty storefronts along Broadway by the Wilson L station have been abandoned for for 7 or 8 years. One homeless person camps out in front of one of the empty store fronts. Ron Huberman lived a few blocks away and last summer promised us that CTA would be quickly rehabbing the stores to rent them out an use the money to build a new station; a station that was promised to us by our alderman in 1995.(Each campaign season Helen Shiller promises us a new L station there.)

What gives?

[N Sub Dennis]

Since this function is now being farmed out to a private company is the CTA reducing the size of its internal real estate department? Did they ever lease out the vacant floor on their new Lake Street HQ? Do they have a clue that the word "efficiency" also applies to their bloated bureaucracy?

[jfx]

Poor time to sell real estate, but I have no problem with leasing space, especially if the alternative is no extra revenue. Just please please don't make it a Mayor Daley style 100 year lease (e.g., Midway, parking meters). Three to four years should be fine, getting revenue now and allowing for possible rent adjustments in the future.

[Bridgeport]

As I look into my crystal ball I see a Daley crony paying pennies on the dollar for property!!

[Armageddon-Man]

Well, the CTA is ensuring it's destruction with their latest, greatest idea to fire-sale it's real estate portfolio. Wow, what a great idea! They over-paid for the properties in the first place, buying property that isn't fit for human residence anyway due to the extremely noisy locations. Now, they are panicking and selling plots to, what will no doubt be scumbag developers, who will build more useless condos that won't sell. And, the CTA will be falling into the biggest black hole real estate bungle in it's history, BUY HIGH, SELL LOW! Way to waste our money again Mayor Daley! Way to hire incompetent machine lemmings to do your dirty work and dig an even deeper hole for Chicago citizens.

What we should be doing is 1) Eliminate the free rides 2) buy more property and 3) upgrade subway cars to something closer to tramway cars (like Walt Disney World).

Nobody should get free rides. We should be buying when everyone else is selling. Sell it during the next boom, thirty years from now. Modernize the rails and cars to limit mechanical issues. Plan to go towards electric subways, fueled by renewable energy from wind turbines along the southern lakefront.

We are a city desperate for intelligent politicians, desperate for honest, capable leadership, desperate for integrity and ingenuity.

Will it happen in our lifetimes, probably not.

[Armageddon-Man]

john williams wrote:

This is too funny. The CTA's timing in entering the real estate market is about as good as the on time performance of its busses and trains.

Well said. Well said.

[politwriter]

When I saw the headline, I thought this might be a story about privatizing the CTA.

That might be the only real solution to this absolutely inept and unresponsive mass transit monopoly.

As recently as three decades ago, the CTA faced competition from a privately owned Evanston Bus Company and in the earlier part of the century, streetcar and bus lines in Chicago were privately owned and operated.

[Shtugotz]

Some very nice properties, if you speak spanish you should do fine. Didn't Al Capone get killed in one of those buildings?

If the new stimulas package does not pay to redo the entire "L" system, it never will be redone. Some of those tracks have been up since the turn of the century, and I ain't talkin about this century.

I wonder what the property taxes are on these parcels? If the CTA pays property tax. If not you can bet the next owner will!

[Bob in Chicago]

Al Capone died from declining health in Miami, genius.

[Ethan]

despite the negative criticisms, this is a very good idea. We should be glad that the CTA is finally getting around to dumping un-used property. The maintenance and insurance savings were not part of the article but certainly play a role in the decision to unload the properties.

Instead of jumping on the whine wagon, let's thank the CTA for making the right move instead of the wrong one.