Executive Director Clayton Harris III took over in 2016 from a predecessor best known for his fat vacation-day payouts. A former chief of staff both at the Illinois Department of Transportation and for Rod Blagojevich, Harris hums with energy: On a recent tour of the port, he knows everyone's name, checks in with local state Rep. Nicholas Smith and tells how he manned the district's guard shack when a security contractor backed out.

"The potential here— I don't even know a large enough word," he says. "It's enormous. It's huge. It's great."

Harris has championed a plan advancing a tripartite mission for the port: shipping and other transport, environmental conservation and projects, and real estate development. The district plans to install solar panels on warehouse rooftops and preserve existing marshland. It also issued a request for information from developers who might be interested in building a hotel and marina at the site.

In 2017, the port district reported a profit of $281,000 on $4.6 million of revenue, after years of losses. Harris also persuaded the Illinois General Assembly last year to forgive a nearly four-decade-old $15 million loan that the port district never made a payment on. He's crossing his fingers that the Legislature will pass a capital bill next year with $60 million to $100 million earmarked for projects like repairing the dock wall, shoring up the nearby sheds and extending rail lines.

A combination of local, state and federal funds is paying to repave the port's Butler Drive. The road, which runs along dockside sheds and has railroad tracks down the center, epitomizes for Harris the port's multimodal capabilities. The project will stop water from pooling on the tracks, allow more efficient loading and end the occasional derailments that halt work.

LAND LEASES

The district's revenue comes from land leases, including Harborside International Golf Center, and fees for docking at the port. One of the Civic Federation's chief criticisms from 2008 was that the port, which does not pay property taxes, should not be managing a golf course. Northbrook-based KemperSports Management took over the course in 2013 and now pays the district between $350,000 and $550,000 annually, says Michael Forde, chairman of the port's board of directors, as well as an Emanuel ally and former partner at Mayer Brown.

About 24 companies hold leases at the port, including Sweet Mix, a subsidiary of Tootsie Roll, and Houston-based petrochemical company Kinder Morgan, which pays annual rent of $75,000 and has eight years left on a lease that started in 1960. The port district's largest tenant, North American Stevedoring, accounted for 41 percent of revenue last year.

The port needs capital investment; five years ago Emanuel and Gov. Pat Quinn thought they had found a savior in Denver-based Broe Group, promising to invest $500 million. But Forde says when it came time to negotiate details, "they backed away from some of their commitments," and the deal collapsed.

In August, the port district issued a request for proposals seeking a private operator for the port. It has received questions, but so far no bids.

Civic Federation President Laurence Msall still sees the port district, one of the state's more than 6,900 governmental entities, as a "shining example of how hard it is for outdated and ineffective special units of government to be put to rest in Illinois."

The nine-man board includes former Ald. Ray Suarez and former Cook County Commissioner Charles Bowen. Board compensation totaled just under $197,000 in 2017; Msall pointed out that the Chicago Board of Education and the state's library boards work for free.

With half the board appointed by the governor and half by the mayor, there's no accountability for progress, Msall says, "so an entire decade goes by with the port not doing anything the public could understand as beneficial to its original purpose. . . .Instead, it explores different opportunities to justify its existence."