The Chicago Sky broke ground on their new $60 million practice facility back in October 2024, but are yet to deliver. They’ve sold free agents, coaches, and an ever-growing fanbase on the promise of a state-of-the-art home at Bedford Park, which was expected to be completed in 2025. However, it’s once again been delayed, and for WNBA Reporter Annie Costabile, the latest delay reflects a bigger problem.
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“Their practice situation has been a point of contention for quite some time. I obviously started my career covering the Chicago Sky, and so I have a very lengthy history of understanding of kind of what’s gone on there, and where they’ve practiced up until this year was a public rec center.” Costabile said on the latest episode of No Offseason.
“Sachs Recreation Center in Deerfield is where they practiced… And it was again the one practice court, adequate space to lift, and a locker room that was not private. So they were sharing locker room space with the people who were members of this recreation center. So again, the Sky, I think, took steps because they were forced to.”
The WNBA reporter sees the Chicago Sky’s actions as reactive instead of proactive. They only broke ground on a new facility when it became difficult to operate with what they had. Costabile also believes that reactive nature hasn’t changed.
The October 2025 deadline got delayed due to weather issues. However, when announcing that construction once again hit a roadblock earlier this month, the Chicago Sky’s GM cited bad weather among other things like supply chain issues.
The team also added to their initial plan for the facility’s size. Their vision grew from a roughly 40,000 sq. ft. facility to nearly 80,000 after players requested additional features, including a content studio.
“They are an organization that, similar to what we’re seeing with Cathy Englebert, has been operating in response to a lot of things and have not been necessarily the proactive organization. They are on their back foot.”
While that would naturally add to the construction time, they’ve now failed to deliver on two deadlines and have extended it a third time to November of this year. However, even if they meet that deadline, the facility won’t be ready to use until the end of the current season, and that’s not something the players wanted.
So as the spotlight around the franchise grew, those conditions became increasingly difficult to ignore. “I was thinking we were going to be in a practice facility, and other things that were told to me. And that’s not been the case,” Skylar Diggins said in the first week of July.
For now, the Chicago Sky will continue practicing at Wintrust Arena for the remainder of the 2026 season while construction on the Bedford Park facility continues. So with the team also enduring a difficult 9-18 run in the ongoing season, the organization can only hope better days are ahead both on and off the court.