CHICAGO — Construction on a massive migrant tent camp will begin Wednesday in Brighton Park following days of mixed messages on the next steps for the hotly contested plan.
Crews for GardaWorld — a multinational private security firm hired to build the “winterized base camp” for migrants — began staging equipment and materials Monday at the Brighton Park vacant lot set to be the city’s newest migrant shelter.
GardaWorld on Tuesday will start to measure out the tent site and install bases for the camp, rising from a vacant industrial lot at 3710 S. California Ave. Construction of the climate controlled base camp is set to start as early as Wednesday, Mayor Brandon Johnson’s spokesperson Ronnie Reese said in a statement.
But in an open letter to constituents Saturday, Brighton Park Ald. Julia Ramirez (12th) said the city told her construction would kick off Monday. Reese previously denied that construction would begin Monday. Crews were seen at the site Monday.
The back-and-forth comes as Ramirez and outspoken Brighton Park residents take umbrage with the site moving forward while the city has yet to share an environmental impact study. Toxic heavy metals had been found at the site, which has a long history of industrial use, Ramirez told the-Sun Times.
“Let me be clear: I am opposed to the construction of this site, especially as the full environmental impact study results have not been shared with my office or with the community,” Ramirez wrote in her Saturday letter.
Reese said “environmental information” about the site would be provided by the city this week.
“Common mitigation strategies are ongoing and anticipated for completion by the end of this week, weather permitting,” Reese said in a statement. “The city is confident that the property will be suited for the purpose for which it will be used.”
If the site clears all its assessments, it would take at least four days to set up the physical camp and several more days before welcoming residents, according to a city fact sheet.
Asked about environmental concerns at the site, Johnson said Tuesday there is urgency in getting people out of police stations and tents as winter weather arrives. Johnson said the city is operating under standard building procedures and that no one will be moved into the camp until the environmental report is released.
“As we’ve been doing at all of our sites, we’ve assessed and we have looked for any contaminants and all of the remediation that’s necessary to eliminate the contaminants, that’s very much a part of my overall agenda,” Johnson said.
About 500 people — families with children — would move into the Brighton Park tent camp at first, with an expected maximum capacity of about 2,000 residents, Cristina Pacione Zayas, Johnson’s deputy chief of staff, said at a community meeting in October.
When plans for the Brighton Park camp were first announced in October, Ramirez slammed Johnson for a lack of transparency surrounding the process.
Critics have been vocal in their opposition of the plan, as well as the troubled humanitarian reputation of GardaWorld, which received a $29 million city contract to build the camps.
The “winterized base camps” were suggested by Johnson in September as a way to get thousands of new arrivals out of police stations and provide them a form of shelter as winter arrives.
The Johnson administration has since defended the strategy and is now planning a tent camp at 115th and Halsted streets on the Far South Side.
Some migrants have already been moved from police station lobbies and sidewalks this week as temperatures reached dangerous lows. With the winterized camps not yet completed, it is unclear where those people were relocated.
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