The United Center hasn't been served by a Pink Line station since it opened. Could redevelopment plans change that?

Chicago Tribune

08-02-2025

By the time the United Center opened in 1994, an 'L' station that was once about a block away from the stadium had been gone for decades.
There were brief talks of restoring the station for the 1996 Democratic National Convention, but those plans never materialized. Later, in 2006, the CTA's Pink Line opened on a stretch of old track alongside United Center parking lots, with no new stop at Madison Street.
But the time might soon arrive for a new Pink Line stop at Madison, as plans progress on a proposal by the owners of the Bulls and Blackhawks to redevelop the neighborhood around the United Center. A new station has the support of the developers and the local alderman, and CTA and city officials have begun early discussions about the feasibility of a new 'L' stop.
Building a new station won't be without challenges. It would likely take years, and wasn't included among plans to privately finance the first phase of the development, which includes construction of a new music hall, hotel and green space in the area. Ald. Walter Burnett, whose 27th Ward includes the neighborhood, raised the possibility of exploring whether there is tax increment financing available for the station.
Still, Burnett said there's now 'a strong possibility' a new station across from the United Center could come to pass. While he once pushed for other transit priorities before the new Pink Line station, he now thinks the station would be a 'win-win.'
'It'd be an investment, but (the developers) need to put it there to attract people to that development so they can get prospective tenants, and so we can get more people moving around the city and spending money in the city, beside just on game day,' he said.
The developers of the plan, known as the 1901 Project, touted the benefits of a new CTA station, but said decisions about a new 'L' stop are up to the city.
'The 1901 Project believes Chicago's West Side would benefit from an additional Pink Line station offering greater connection and opportunity to the neighborhood and its residents and thus are supportive of the efforts,' spokesperson Colleen Quinn said in a statement. 'The decision and next steps, however, ultimately lie with the city and its departments.'
A new Pink Line station wouldn't be the first at the intersection of Madison and Paulina streets.
The Metropolitan Elevated railroad once ran west from downtown near what is now Ida B. Wells Drive, then split into several branches, one of which turned north along Paulina and became what is now part of the Pink Line, according to Graham Garfield, who runs the 'L' history website Chicago-L.org and is a CTA employee.
Opened in 1895, the tracks continued north through West Town until they hit Milwaukee Avenue and turned into what is now the O'Hare branch of the Blue Line, crossing Metra tracks on a trestle bridge that can still be seen today, said Jeff Sriver, a former CTA employee who now works for the city's Transportation Department. In one case an old 'L' station building can still be seen along Chicago Avenue, now home to a Thai restaurant, he said.
The line included a station at Madison, built around the same time and similar in style to the Damen station on the Blue Line, Garfield said in an email. But the Madison stop closed in 1951, when trains were rerouted into downtown via the subway that is still in use today and the tracks along Paulina closed to passenger service.
For decades, the Paulina tracks deteriorated and were used only to move equipment between the Blue Line and the rest of the 'L' system. Until the Pink Line was created.
Creating the Pink Line started as a rehabilitation of a branch of what was then the Blue Line that ran to Cicero, said Sriver, who was involved in planning for the new train line at the CTA.
The contractor working on the rehab offered a good deal to add in work on the old stretch of tracks along Paulina, near the United Center, which needed to be rebuilt, Sriver said. That offered an opportunity to create a new line with more flexible service schedules that would run along the Paulina tracks and the former Blue Line branch to Cicero, he said. It would eventually become the Pink Line.
Though the Tribune reported in 2004 that a station at Madison was among two new stops proposed as the line was under consideration, Sriver said creating a station at that time wouldn't have been efficient. Planners didn't want to prohibit a future stop from being built, but adding one then would have meant a longer and more complicated planning process, and would have required acquiring nearby properties, he said.
'There was expediency to just getting the line rebuilt and doing that in a very cost-effective way,' Sriver said. 'Since that was kind of cookie cutter from the rest of the line, that was the focus.'
In the years since, building other new stations took priority. New stops were added near McCormick Place on the Green Line and at Morgan Street in the West Loop on the Pink and Green lines. More recently, the Damen Green Line station opened in August about a half-mile north of the United Center.
The Damen stop was a particular priority for Burnett, longtime alderman for the ward.
He didn't know why a Madison stop was not built when the Pink Line opened, he said, but in the years that followed he pushed for the Damen stop to be created first. The stop, at Lake Street and Damen Avenue, is closer to businesses in the Kinzie Industrial Corridor and residents of the Westhaven community. It could also provide access to Malcolm X College for residents coming from west suburbs like Oak Park, he said.
'I wanted that to be taken care of first, then we work on the Pink Line,' he said. 'That's my own personal feelings.'
Now, with Damen built and a massive development proposed for the area around the United Center, the Pink Line station makes more sense to him.
'I think there'll be more residents right there, along with more businesses,' he said.
A new station will likely take years. The Damen station, for example, was first announced in 2017 and expected to take three years to finish, but it was delayed and work stretched through the pandemic.
So far, no Madison station has been announced, but the CTA and CDOT have begun discussions about planning for a station, a CDOT official said.
'There were a lot of competing priorities, and (the station's) time hadn't come yet,' Sriver said. 'Now it looks like its time is getting closer.'