City of Chicago advances plan to buy Greyhound Bus terminal
The City of Chicago has been moving ahead in its effort to buy the city's Greyhound Bus Station after more than a year of uncertainty.
The bus station, at 630 W. Harrison St. just south and west of the Loop, has been on a month-to-month lease from the property owner ever since its lease expired last year.
According to city documents, Mayor Brandon Johnson submitted an ordinance last week giving the City Council the ability to buy the terminal for $19.2 million.
The terminal made headlines in the summer of 2024 when it was in imminent danger of shutting down, as it was about to be evicted from the property.
The city announced moves to buy and renovate the bus station back in February. At that time, leaders from the city's Department of Planning and Development held a public meeting on the plan, which included expanding the Canal/Congress TIF District to include the bus station on Harrison Street.
This would allow Chicago to buy and renovate the terminal using property tax money put in a special pot for economic development.
Ald. Bill Conway (34th) told CBS News Chicago in February the Planning and Development Commission estimated the idea would cost about $50 million. This would include $19 million to buy the station and $31 million to renovate.
The Harrison Street Greyhound station, located right alongside the Jane Byrne Interchange, opened in 1989.
Before that, going back to 1953, the Chicago Greyhound terminal was located at Clark and Randolph streets in the Loo p— at the current site of the Grant Thornton Tower, across the street from the Daley Center and the Thompson Center, and kitty-corner from the City Hall-County Building complex. Buses would enter the old terminal from Lower Wacker Drive.
Despite its prominent location, the old Chicago Greyhound terminal had a documented reputation for being beyond seedy — with a litany of horror stories about kidnappings, sex trafficking, and other crime. In a 2004 Chicago Reader article, writer Steve Bogira wrote that John Wayne Gacy even picked up his first known victim at the old Loop terminal.
Greyhound sought to shake the old, sordid image as it moved its terminal to the Harrison Street location, and Bogira noted that by 2004, security was tighter and there had been a crackdown on loiterers without tickets.
In addition to Greyhound itself, the present-day Chicago Greyhound station is served by Burlington Trailways, Jefferson Lines, FlixBus, and Barons Bus.
The station serves 500,000 people each year.
