Crain’s Headlines: Massive Funding Deal for Chicago Catholic Schools


The Archdiocese of Chicago has struck a deal with a nonprofit backed by some of the city’s wealthiest donors to help address its financial challenges.

Big Shoulders Fund will spend nearly $50 million over the next 10 years to support operations and programming at 30 Catholic schools on the city’s South and West Sides.

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In return, the fund will assume a 51% financial stake in those schools.

Big Shoulders already lends financial support to 75 Catholic schools and is now stepping up its commitment as the archdiocese faces rising pension costs, misconduct settlements and aging infrastructure.

In other Chicago-area business news:

The financial toll for Boeing’s grounded 737 Max is becoming a little more clear.

Bloomberg reports the Chicago-based company has revealed its total costs will be north of $18 billion. That includes losses from a global flying ban for the flawed jet and what it will take to restart production later this year.

Boeing also reported its first annual loss last year since 1997.

Shares of the company were actually up Wednesday, but shares are still down around 25% since an Ethiopian Airlines jet crashed in March.

And finally, after trying and failing to sell all seven of its downtown Chicago office towers last year, a New York real estate firm wants to renovate and lease them up instead.

AmTrust Realty has hired Matt Pistorio, one of the former brokers who helped lease up the Old Post Office, to try to lure companies to its 6.2 million-square-foot collection of buildings.

AmTrust’s portfolio includes Bank of America’s main Chicago office on LaSalle Street, which will soon be almost entirely empty when the bank moves to a new tower on Wacker Drive.

AmTrust is hoping to tap into a downtown office market that saw more company move-ins in 2019 than any year since 2007.


Crain’s Headlines is a joint production between WTTW and Crain’s Chicago Business. It airs every Monday through Thursday on the WTTW News program “Chicago Tonight.” 


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