U of I lost at least $30 million on failed South Loop Project According to News Report
Springfield, Illinois — In a bipartisan vote, the Illinois Audit Commission unanimously approved State Senator Chapin Rose’s (R-Mahomet) resolution calling for a full performance audit of President Tim Killeen’s signature Discovery Partners Institute initiative (“DPI”) after news accounts noted the loss of over $30,000,000 in state taxpayer resources under Killeen’s stewardship of the institute. After yet another “mission change” in the nearly eight-year-old DPI program, the U of I abandoned the South Chicago Loop project, which, according to the Chicago Sun-Times, led to a loss of at least $30,000,000 to Illinois taxpayers.
Senator Rose, the Co-Chair of the Legislative Audit Commission (LAC), filed LAC Resolution #168, which directs the Illinois Auditor General to investigate how the U of I wasted $30 million on a project that never broke ground. In a recent state budget appropriation hearing, Killeen admitted that the losses reported by the Chicago Sun-Times were accurate, reinforcing the urgency for a full and transparent audit.
“President Tim Killeen has changed the mission of this project so many times it’s hard to keep track,” said Senator Rose. “And every change has cost taxpayers more and more money. I want to know where every last penny went and why the mission scope changed so many times under Killeen. The taxpayers deserve to know. More importantly, going forward, if DPI is to remain on the books, it should be led exclusively by the Urbana-Champaign campus and its world-class researchers, not by President Tim Killeen’s failed leadership. Killeen has had 8 years to get this done, and all he has to show for it is $30 million in wasted taxpayer dollars.”
Launched seven years ago with promises of a transformative $285 million tech and research hub in Chicago’s South Loop, the project has since collapsed under delays, shifting objectives, and ballooning costs. The university ultimately scrapped the site, leaving taxpayers on the hook for over $30 million—with total losses potentially nearing $40 million.
“It’s time to put a fresh set of eyes on DPI. We will see what the Auditor General’s office comes up with, in the meantime, I’m calling on the U of I to fully invest in the future leadership of DPI in the Urbana campus and out of the President’s office – he had his chance,” Rose concluded.