Bally’s has given Tribune Publishing its walking papers, exercising a relocation option to force the newspaper company to vacate its mammoth River West printing plant to make way for a casino.
The relocation notice, delivered several weeks ago, will end a four-decade run for the Freedom Center, which is slated for demolition to build a $1.74 billion casino complex in its place along the Chicago River.
But Freedom Center won’t have to stop the presses immediately. Tribune Publishing will have up to two years to find a new location for its printing plant before the casino breaks ground, Bally’s Chairman Soo Kim said. And Bally’s will have to chip in to fund that relocation.
“We have time,” Kim said. “The plant could have between one and two years before we put a shovel in the ground.”
