By Erick Johnson
In the spring of 2017, CTA President Dorval Carter, Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Congressman Bobby Rush held a press conference at the corner of 63rd and Cottage Grove. Together, they announced a major renovation project of the aging Cottage Grove Green Line train station as part of a plan to revitalize the Woodlawn’s neighborhood.
Renderings of the renovation project showed a dramatic transformation of one of Chicago’s oldest train stations. It would sport a stylish façade that would tower over storefront businesses along Cottage Grove. The Chicago Crusader covered the story after Mayor Rahm Emanuel, and the CTA issued a joint press release that said the project would “revitalize and renovate the CTA’s Cottage Grove Green Line station and the surrounding area.”
Today, the Crusader has learned that the city and the CTA broke their promise to renovate the Cottage Grove Green Line train station on a scale that would have helped change the image of Woodlawn. After numerous unreturned emails and questions, the Crusader learned that since the announcement eight years ago, CTA has replaced the train tracks at the train station and nothing else. A renovation project that was initially communicated to the public by the city and CTA turned out to be nothing but routine improvements. When asked about the promised renovation, CTA told the Crusader to ask Emanuel, who’s now a political commentator for CNN.
It’s a different tone than 2017, when the city and CTA announced its promise to renovate the Cottage Grove Green Line train. To Emanuel’s delight, the announcement received plenty of media attention. Now after nearly a decade of inaction, the project remains forgotten.
As the embattled CTA remain in flux, the future of the Cottage Grove train station renovation project may depend on current Mayor Brandon Johnson as the transit agency remains crippled with a budget crisis that may seal the project’s doom.
Since the day the project was announced, the Crusader closely followed CTA’s actions or inaction on the Cottage Grove train station. The project has languished under three mayoral administrations. As other higher-profile CTA train stations like the Damen facility were being renovated, little to nothing was done on the promised renovation of the Cottage Grove station. For years the CTA failed to release details about the progress in its annual budget or press releases. Suspicions grew when CTA’s language of the Cottage Grove project changed from renovation to simply “improvements.” And when an unnamed person from the CTA emailed the Crusader but failed to give his or her name, more questions emerged. When the Crusader sent CTA 26 emails about the Cottage Grove train station renovation project, the transit agency did not respond to any of them.
The revelations come as the CTA begins holding community meetings next week for input on its 2026 budget at a critical time when financial woes and public trust plague the transit agency under interim President Nora Leerhsen. As COVID-19 funds exhausted, Leerhsen took over in January after Carter retired amid heavy criticism of his leadership and his $391,108 salary while the CTA struggled with below-average ridership, ghost trains, late buses, and other service problems. As critics called for Carter’s resignation, Mayor Brandon Johnson stood by him. But the cash-strapped, beleaguered transit agency faces a roughly $770 million budget deficit that may force it to cut services that impact riders.
For decades, CTA has been criticized for giving more attention to train stations that serve high profile areas where many tourists visit. As the Cottage Grove Green Line renovation project remains uncertain, in August, the CTA announced that a staggering $440 million will be spent on an enormous renovation that will completely transform the CTA train station at State and Lake Street in the Loop. It will have massive glass canopy, wider platforms and framed views of Downtown from elevated tracks.
On August 5, 2024, Carter and the CTA reopened the Damen Green Line station during the high profile Democratic National Convention at the United Center, which was blocks away from the train station. Mayor Johnson and Carter led the ribbon cutting ceremony in front of the station, which costs $80.2 million to renovate.
The Damen Station was scheduled to open in 2020 but was delayed during the coronavirus pandemic. CTA officials announced plans to renovate the Damen Station in 2017.
That same year, on April 24, 2017, the CTA and Mayor Emanuel sent out a press release that announced plans to renovate the Cottage Grove Station, which is the last stop on the Green Line.
The Crusader still has a digital copy of the press release and emailed it to the CTA as part of its investigation.
In addition to Mayor Emanuel and Carter, the joint press release included then Chicago Department of Transportation Commissioner (CDOT) Rebekah Scheinfeld in making the announcement.
Sent out by Mayor Emanuel’s office, the press release said the Cottage Grove station will have “visual, architectural and lighting treatments outside of the station to enhance the experience of both CTA customers and pedestrians. Options under consideration include architectural screening and community identifiers along sidewalks and on the ‘L’ structure. Changes to the station itself could include new canopies and reconfigured stairs.”
In the press release, Mayor Emanuel says “We are investing in the future of the CTA, and in the future of Woodlawn. Investments like this one strengthen communities, attract private investment and drive neighborhood growth.”
Then CTA President Carter says in the press release, “As with the Garfield Green Line station and the Belmont Blue Line station, here at Cottage Grove we see an opportunity to create an attractive community gateway that will serve as a hub for Woodlawn.”
Days after the press release was sent out, city leaders hosted a press conference that was held under a tent on vacant lot, where a new affordable housing development and Daley’s restaurants stands today. During the press conference. Carter, Mayor Emanuel and Congressman Bobby Rush were among the leaders who participated in a ceremonial shoveling of dirt. Local television and print media, including the Crusader covered the story.
That same day, Mayor Emanuel, Carter and Rush men walked to 2nd-level platform of the Cottage Grove Green Line station, where an enlarged rendering of the planned renovated facility sat on an easel. That’s where Mayor Emanuel touted the opportunities of a renovated Cottage Grove CTA train station.
At the time, the Woodlawn neighborhood was experiencing a development boom. The University of Chicago’s non-profit arm Preservation of Affordable Housing (POAH) built the Woodlawn Station, a four-story, 70-unit affordable housing development near the northeast corner of 63rd and Cottage Grove. In 2019, POAH helped Daley’s, Chicago’s oldest restaurant, move across the street between the entrance of the Cottage Grove Green Line Station and the Woodlawn Station. In 2022, Friend Health opened a nearly 46,000-square-foot health center on the northwest side of the train station to service underserved Woodlawn residents. In December 2016, the nearby historic Strand Apartments, where jazz artists Louis Armstrong and John Coltrane once played, reopened decades after it was a renowned hotel.
Since then, POAH has built more affordable housing units in the area. Community leaders and organizations like the Woodlawn Chamber of Commerce viewed the new developments as a mutual benefit that would bring working professionals into the community and boost ridership at the renovated Cottage Grove Green Line Station which would serve as the centerpiece of the rejuvenated business corridor.
Of additional community benefit is the nearby Obama Presidential Center and Library, which will open next year, just minutes from the Cottage Grove station.
But today, rust covers many parts of the aging train station. The south platform of the station is not used. Inbound and outbound riders used the north platform to board and exit the train. And on the CTA’s website, there’s little to no transparency that shows how the $60 million that was earmarked for the project was being spent.
The Crusader reviewed CTA’s annual budgets between 2018 to 2024 and found little information on the progress of the renovation project. There’s generic “updates” that are similar to the CTA’s response in its email on January 8. In the 2021 and 2022 budget documents, the project cost was listed at $75 million. However, none of annual budget documents included a rendering of the renovation. In some years, the description on the progress were nearly the same as if the author cut and paste the paragraph in the previous year’s budget in the next year’s.
When the Damen train station and other train stations were being renovated, the CTA included in its budget document a rendering of the renovation and specific updates on what has been done to the station.
Sources told the Crusader in 2021 that the CTA never had intentions to “renovate” the Cottage Grove train station in the first place, despite requests from some community leaders. The announcement came at a time when Mayor Emanuel was spearheading projects on the South and West Sides after he faced sustained criticism over the prolonged delay in releasing the video of Laquan McDonald being shot 16 times while campaigning for votes in the Black community in the mayoral runoff race against Jesus “Chuy” Garcia. In addition to the Cottage Grove train station, Mayor Emanuel appointed several Black department leaders and announced a multi-million project that would have dramatically transformed Cottage Grove beyond 79th Street. That never happened either.
In 2021, four years after the renovation plans were announced, the Crusader published a story that reported on the project’s lack of progress. Irene, a CTA official who wouldn’t give her last name, said the CTA “is working collaboratively with POAH to finalize conceptual designs, as well as efforts to secure funding for their portion of the project, which is necessary in order for the project to advance to the next phase.”
Four years after that story, the Crusader emailed the CTA again about the status of the project. On January 8, 2025, a CTA official who didn’t give his or her name, said in an email, “The Cottage Green Line construction project will address several state-of-good repair needs and make other station improvements, The $60 million in upgrades planned for this station complement the City of Chicago’s ideas for redevelopment around the station at 63rd and Cottage Grove Avenue, which is part of ongoing redevelopment and renewal in the Woodlawn neighborhood. CTA started track work in late 2023 and throughout 2024. This work continues in 2025.
That’s when the Crusader asked in a follow up email if the “improvements” were going to be on the same scale as the promised renovation that was shown in the renderings that CTA and Mayor Emanuel released in 2017. On January 23, an unidentified CTA official or staff member said they will “reach out” once they have answers to the Crusader’s questions.
Eight weeks passed without a response from CTA. The agency also failed to respond after the Crusader emailed CTA officials 26 times between March and early September.
The Crusader spoke with Bill Eager, POAH’s Midwestern Vice President of Real Estate Development, but he declined to comment on the record for this story.
The Crusader reached out to Cassio Mendoza, spokesperson for Mayor Brandon Johnson’s office, who gave this response after speaking with the CTA.
“They said they fixed the tracks in the area. The rest about renovating the station, Rahm proposed and didn’t do it,” Mendoza said. “They said you should reach out to Rahm’s people or reach out to some of the investors or other people involved.”
Mendoza didn’t say what upgrades the CTA has done to the Cottage Grove train station.
“Basically, they were saying that the renovation won’t happen,” Mendoza said.
Mendoza said he will check with Mayor Johnson to see whether the city’s promise to renovate Cottage Grove station can still be fulfilled.
Despite the fact that the renovation project was promised under another mayor, the Crusader informed Mendoza that the press release, photos and stories show that city, along with CTA President Carter supported the promise but did nothing before he retired.
“Seems like they were disingenuous,” Mendoza said.