70 ILCS 915/3
The Commission is authorized to acquire the fee simple title to real property lying within the District and personal property required for its purposes, by gift, purchase, or otherwise, and title thereto shall be taken in the corporate name of the Commission. The Commission may acquire by lease such real and personal property found by the Commission to be necessary for its purposes and to which the Commission finds that it need not acquire the fee simple title for carrying out of such purposes. All real and personal property within the District, except that owned and used for purposes authorized under this Act by medical institutions or allied educational institutions, hospitals, dispensaries, clinics, dormitories or homes for the nurses, doctors, students, instructors or other officers or employees of the aforesaid institutions located in the District, or any real property which is used for offices or for recreational purposes in connection with the aforesaid institutions, or any improved residential property within a currently effective historical district properly designated under a federal statute or a State or local statute that has been certified by the Secretary of the Interior to the Secretary of the Treasury as containing criteria which will substantially achieve the purpose of preserving and rehabilitating buildings of historical significance to the district, may be acquired by the Commission in its corporate name under the provisions for the exercise of the right of eminent domain under the Eminent Domain Act .
70 ILCS 915/3