The Chicago Sky were in a celebratory mood on Wednesday morning.
Members of the front office and basketball staff gathered in Bedford Park alongside members of the village government to sign one of the final beams used in the construction of the team’s new training facility. It marked the first time that many members of the Sky — including coach Tyler Marsh — had seen any of the construction on the project.
But while the Sky were eager to celebrate progress, the team faces a crucial question of timing: Will the training facility be ready for the 2026 season?
Even with significant delays, executives from both the Sky and the Village of Bedford Park believe the answer is yes.
“I am confident that it will be done before the season next year,” Sky co-owner and operating chairman Nadia Rawlinson said.
The Sky originally set a construction deadline for December 2025. The project has since blown past that estimation due to a series of additions made by the Sky to increase the overall footprint of their portion of the facility. Although Wednesday was billed as an “enclosure” ceremony, a large portion of the building’s western wall is still uncompleted. The facility is still awaiting a roof and windows to complete the exterior.
Still, representatives from the Sky and the village maintain that the facility will be operational in April — albeit with some “flexibility” for a final completion date, which means the team might not have full use of the space at the start of preseason.
The WNBA has not released the season schedule for 2026. This year, training camps opened on April 27 and the season kicked off on May 16. If next season follows the same timeline, the Sky have roughly seven months remaining to complete the training facility.
Rawlinson and the Sky front office were bullish about the changes and additions that caused the initial delay. For instance, the original plans for the building stacked the courts from end to end, but after internal review, the Sky decided to move the courts to be side by side.
“We need this to be practical for the people who will be here each and every day, working out and training,” Rawlinson said.
The team lauded the fact that the kitchen will be serviced by at least five full-time staffers and player spaces will include facilities for makeup artists, hairstylists and content creation. Multiple team and village officials voiced excitement over an observation deck where the team can host executives, season ticket holders and other guests to watch training sessions.
The Sky feel these additions will significantly improve the training facility as a primary asset in recruiting free agents this offseason — making them well worth the wait.
Delays aren’t just a concern for the team. While the Sky are the primary face of this construction, the Village of Bedford Park is the ultimate benefactor — and proprietor — of the greater Wintrust Sports Complex project.
The Sky are footing 30% of the total construction costs while the village fulfills the 70% majority of the Phase 2 expansion of the complex. The Sky will not have any ownership rights over the facility — they will operate as tenants with a 10-year lease and a 10-year option to renew. But the team will have exclusive access to its section of the facility, which will include a players-only entrance.
Throughout the planning process, Bedford Park Mayor David Brady has expressed enthusiasm about working with the Sky.
“You hear rumors sometimes that professional teams are hard to work with,” Brady said during Wednesday’s ceremony. “That’s not true with the Sky.”
Behind the scenes, negotiations between the team and the village have been more tense. Members of village leadership have regularly voiced complaints and concerns about how these delays will affect their side of the Phase 2 project, primarily a set of turf indoor fields that will not be available this winter for football or soccer rentals.
In a May meeting of the village board, Brady detailed frustrations that the village was not adequately brought “into the loop” for the decision-making process surrounding the expansions that created a six-month delay in the project. The two parties have continued to bicker over the 70-30 payment split — especially for these new additions, which Brady said added $18 million to the total cost of the facility.
Brady recalled one of these conversations with Sky owner Michael Alter, suggesting the Sky seek out assistance from the Reinsdorf family — owners of the Chicago Bulls — if they were unhappy with their partnership in Bedford Park.
“They’re stuck because there’s a lot of pressure on them to get it done, but they’re never going to,” Brady said. “Because Michael said, ‘Oh, we talked to the city, we would have been in the city.’ And things like that. I said, ‘You’re not going to get a better deal than this.’ And if they want to leave, so be it, we’ll just rent.”
Despite these intermittent disagreements, collaboration between the village and the Sky continued as planned.
The two parties hosted a planning meeting after Wednesday’s ceremony to look over a slew of suggestions from Sky players for additions or improvements to the facility.
The Sky presented the roster with a detailed look at plans for the facility for the first time after practice on Sept. 2. The players offered a mixed response to the overall plans for the project, suggesting a wide range of potential improvements that included adding more office spaces and additional amenities in the locker room.
Rawlinson admitted that some of those suggestions — particularly requests to move bathrooms closer to the practice courts — won’t be used in the final plans for the facility. While the executive acknowledged that players might be disappointed that their input wasn’t utilized, she said the planning team had to be realistic about delivering a finished training facility on time after initial delays.
“I think there’ll be disappointment no matter what we do, one way or another,” Rawlinson said. “If there’s anything that’s been true over the last year and a half, it’s that you can’t please everyone. But we have the aspiration to do what’s right and what’s best for the goals that we have.”
“I think what’s important is less about the sort of the tactics and the actual specific things, but more about the first principles of what we’re trying to accomplish,” Rawlinson said. “If we use those as the guideposts of what we’re trying to do, if we do have to make trade-offs here and there, I think people understand it. They may not like it or want it, but they understand it, because we all are bought into what principles are what we’re trying to accomplish.”
For now, the Sky are on the clock — seven months and counting until the 2026 season begins.