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. Title shall be taken in the corporate name of the Commission. The Commission may acquire by lease any real property located within the District 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 those 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 those institutions located in the District, or any real property that is used for offices or for recreational purposes in connection with those institutions, or any improved residential property within a historical district properly designated under a federal statute or a State or local statute that has been certified by the Secretary of the Interior of the United States to the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States as containing criteria that 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. The Commission has no quick take powers, no zoning powers, and no power to establish or enforce building codes. The Commission may not acquire any property pursuant to this Section before a comprehensive master plan has been approved under Section 60. Property owned by and exclusively used by the Commission shall be exempt from taxation.
70 ILCS 935/20