The District has power to acquire and accept by purchase, lease, gift, grant or otherwise any property and rights useful for its purposes and to provide for the development of channels, ports, harbors, airports, airfields, terminals, port facilities, terminal facilities, aquariums, museums, planetariums, climatrons and any other building or facility which the District has the power to acquire, construct, reconstruct, extend or improve, to serve the needs of commerce within the District. The District may acquire real or personal property or any rights therein in the manner, as near as may be, as is provided for the exercise of the right of eminent domain under the Eminent Domain Act; except that no rights or property of any kind or character now or hereafter owned, leased, controlled or operated and used by or necessary for the actual operations of any common carrier engaged in interstate commerce, or of any other public utility subject to the jurisdiction of the Illinois Commerce Commission, shall be taken or appropriated by the District without first obtaining the approval of the Illinois Commerce Commission; and except that no property owned by any city within the District shall be taken or appropriated without first obtaining the consent of the governing body of such city.