Mayor Rahm Emanuel today broke ground on LiUNA Chicagoland Laborers’ District Council Training & Apprentice Fund’s $19 million expansion to its training center. The training center will help ensure the city's already unparalleled workforce can keep pace with the unprecedented infrastructure investments happening in Chicago. Since 2011, the Emanuel Administration has invested $35 billion in infrastructure to create 104,000 jobs, and projects that are underway or that have been announced will create an additional 45,000 jobs in 2020 and beyond. 

“These are more than investments in infrastructure; they are investment in our residents,” Mayor Emanuel said. “By building the best public transportation system, most efficient aviation system, strongest road system, most modern school system and greatest park system, we are creating jobs, building stronger communities and securing our place as a world class city for today and for the future.” 

The Training and Apprentice Center currently trains 105 DOL apprentices and 6000 journeymen. The expansion will allow the Laborers’ to increase training to 1,000 apprentices a year and more than double their current training capacity to 14,000 journeymen and apprentices a year. Improvements include 70,000 square feet of new space, 12 classrooms, 10 training bays, a 340 capacity auditorium and a 6,000 square foot administrative remodel. The Laborers’ will also double their current training staff of 25 to 48.

Since 2011, Chicago has invested over $35 billion in infrastructure improvements in neighborhoods across city including construction and renovation for schools, libraries, parks, transit, water/sewer main replacement and housing. Each of these projects helped create thousands of jobs to be filled by trainees from this center as well as increase access to city services and improve the quality of life for residents.  

CPS and the Board of Education have invested $4 billion across the city to build new schools, provide playgrounds and air conditioning, improve access to technology with new computers and increased bandwidth, expand academic programs, and make core investments to fix and maintain our facilities.  City Colleges of Chicago has modernized four campuses and invested more than $600 million in capital projects to bring the city’s community colleges into the 21^st century.

More than $300 million in new investments have been made in Chicago Public Library under the “Branching Out: Building Libraries, Building Communities” initiative to develop and modernize community libraries throughout the city. 6 new libraries have been built and significant updates have been made at 14 branches through the work of 2FM, PBC, and CHA. By 2019, renovations at 4 libraries will be complete.

Through the Chicago Plays! Program and new park developments, the Park District built 365 new playgrounds in neighborhoods across the city. Today, nearly all Chicago residents live with a 10-minute walk to a Chicago park or open space due to strategic park acquisitions. The Park District also opened transformative urban park projects including the 606, the separation of the Lakefront Trail, Maggie Daley Park and 31st St. Harbor.

Under Mayor Emanuel, the CTA has completed, begun or announced more than $8 billion of transit projects to modernize the rail and bus system. Since 2011, nearly 30% CTA stations have received major upgrades and rehabs. Key improvement projects include: Red and Purple Modernization; Red Line Extension; Your New Blue modernization of Blue Line O’Hare Branch; Red Line South rebuild; 95th Street terminal reconstruction; Wilson station reconstruction; FastTracks rail system improvements; new Washington Wabash ‘L’ station; new Cermak-McCormick Place ‘L’ station; Garfield Gateway improvement; IMD station rehab.

More than $3.8 billion in airfield, passenger terminal and infrastructure improvements have been executed at Chicago’s airports. The O'Hare Modernization Program is moving ahead in full force, with two new runways opening since 2011 and three total new runways since the start of the O’Hare Modernization Program. The fourth and final new runway is now under construction and anticipated to open in the fall of 2020. The Midway Modernization Program is modernizing concessions, parking, security infrastructure--elements aimed at streamlining the passenger experience form curb to gate.

Chicago has also added 200 miles of protected bike lanes giving the city a total network of 318 miles of bikeways. The Chicago Department of Transportation has completed 41 streetscape projects, rehabbed or built 36 bridges and repaved more than 2,160 miles of arterial and residential streets and alleys.  The Department of Water Management has replaced over 590 miles of old water mains, replaced or lined 458 miles of sewer mains and lined 89,000 sewer structures.

The Chicago Housing Authority has invested over $1.6 billion in building improvements and construction of affordable housing across the city. This includes the creation of new mixed-income housing and the renovation of thousands of CHA senior and other units to provide new and improved housing for low income families both on the sites of former public housing sites and in neighborhoods throughout the city

Finally, in 2017 and 2018, Chicago averaged a record-breaking more than 60 tower cranes in operation during the year. Adding to Chicago’s building boom, the Department of Buildings issued a record-breaking 48,408 permits in 2017 and nearly reached that total again for 2018.

With many of these projects announced or still underway, the growth in infrastructure jobs is expected to continue into 2020. Key projects for 2020 and beyond include $1.3 billion for continued water/sewer main replacement through 2021, $7 billion for the O'Hare Modernization program, $100 million for CDOT related projects, $47 million for Gately and Addams Park, $85 million for the Public Safety Training Academy and $44 million for the Belmont Cragin School addition. 

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