It just seems very crass right now to think about building a new park for the White Sox when the current one is only about 30 years old, underwent such heavy renovations as to be practically 20 years old, and has everything one could want in terms of access. There are things we need to build more.

It just seems very crass right now to think about building a new park for the White Sox when the current one is only about 30 years old, underwent such heavy renovations as to be practically 20 years old, and has everything one could want in terms of access. There are things we need to build more.

Spiegel was positively giddy the other day, claiming that the new park wouldn’t cost taxpayers extra because the original bonds (paid for by the 2% hotel tax) would be retired in five years, right around the time a new park would be completed. The idea that they can just shift the hotel tax to the new project with no other new money is absurd. The original park cost $130m and about $100m in renovations. Even with that relatively low cost, the bonds haven’t been paid off after 30 years. The new park will cost $1b - $1.5b. This would be a disaster for taxpayers.

And the tollways will become freeways once the construction bonds are retired !!

That looks like a severe case of vertigo.

Spiegel was positively giddy the other day, claiming that the new park wouldn’t cost taxpayers extra because the original bonds (paid for by the 2% hotel tax) would be retired in five years, right around the time a new park would be completed. The idea that they can just shift the hotel tax to the new project with no other new money is absurd. The original park cost $130m and about $100m in renovations. Even with that relatively low cost, the bonds haven’t been paid off after 30 years. The new park will cost $1b - $1.5b. This would be a disaster for taxpayers.

Spiegel was positively giddy the other day, claiming that the new park wouldn’t cost taxpayers extra because the original bonds (paid for by the 2% hotel tax) would be retired in five years, right around the time a new park would be completed. The idea that they can just shift the hotel tax to the new project with no other new money is absurd. The original park cost $130m and about $100m in renovations. Even with that relatively low cost, the bonds haven’t been paid off after 30 years. The new park will cost $1b - $1.5b. This would be a disaster for taxpayers.

I listened to that segment. Leery actually sounded like a real human being with real, nuanced thoughts while Spiegs was just like "new thing good! Build new thing make people number go up!" No consideration for what it would cost, how people get there, what it would leave behind at 35th Street, what it would cost, and what it would cost. Really a poor showing from the "baseball romantic."

The Chicago White Sox met with a state funding agency to present plans for a new stadium, but officials say lawmakers would have to increase the borrowing limit if the team wants taxpayer financing.

The Illinois Sports Facilities Authority would be a major potential source of financing, because it funded construction of the current Sox home at Guaranteed Rate Field. But without a change in state law, the agency has only about $100 million in available funding, CEO Frank Bilecki said — not nearly enough for a development that could cost more than $1 billion.

The briefing last week between agency officials, the team and developer Related Midwest addressed their desire to build a ballpark and surrounding development on The 78, a vacant site on the Chicago River in the South Loop.

Bilecki said the crucial unknown of the project — how it would be paid for — was not discussed in detail, but he hopes to keep the team in Chicago.

Related Midwest released drawings of what the stadium could look like, featuring a center field picnic lawn and a riverwalk with views of the downtown skyline, and ambitious projections for its economic impact.

The new field would generate a $9 billion investment, $4 billion in annual economic impact and $200 million in annual tax revenue, according to the developer’s economic impact projections, which were not publicly substantiated.

The plans call for 5 million annual visitors — about triple what the Sox drew in attendance last year — plus 1,300 new housing units at the current Sox home near Bridgeport, and 1,000 affordable units. The plans also showed a soccer field in the Sox current park. Related Midwest acknowledged it doesn’t own the property around the park — the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority does — and stated that the future of the site would be up to a lengthy community process.

Related Midwest declined through Tricia Van Horn, vice president of marketing and communications, to provide further information on a timetable, how the company came up with its economic projections or whether the proposal would require taxpayer funding.

Allen Sanderson, a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago who studies the economics of sports, said he’s skeptical any new sports venue, including a new downtown White Sox ballpark, can on its own generate billions in new investment.

“Usually when you hear the figure someone gives you on a project’s economic impact, it’s best to take the decimal point and move it one spot to the left, so you end up at about 10% of the original estimate,” he said. “That’s probably what’s going to happen.”

The sports facilities authority still owes $50 million on the current Sox stadium, which opened in 1991, and $589 million on the 2002 renovation of Soldier Field.

Those bonds are supposed to be repaid with a 2% city hotel tax, plus $5 million annually each from the city and state. But those funds weren’t enough to cover the debt in the past two years, forcing the city to pay $36 million extra to cover the difference.

Uncle Jerry is positioning for a sale of both of his teams.

How about tomorrow? Tomorrow would be good.

The Packers got Lambeau as right as the Bears got Soldier Field wrong.


Don't get me wrong, this is no architectural masterpiece. But the old Lambeau was just cheap green cladding around an erector set. This at least looks like a cousin of Miller Park, or like a lifestyle mall in the Chicago exurbs. There's no reason why the Bears couldn't have preserved some simple, neoclassical approach to Soldier Field without glass exteriors or weirdly angled seating bowls. They got exactly the stadium they wanted, it sucked, and now they want another, which by all indications will be Edward Jones Dome II.

The Packers got Lambeau as right as the Bears got Soldier Field wrong.


Don't get me wrong, this is no architectural masterpiece. But the old Lambeau was just cheap green cladding around an erector set. This at least looks like a cousin of Miller Park, or like a lifestyle mall in the Chicago exurbs. There's no reason why the Bears couldn't have preserved some simple, neoclassical approach to Soldier Field without glass exteriors or weirdly angled seating bowls. They got exactly the stadium they wanted, it sucked, and now they want another, which by all indications will be Edward Jones Dome II.

Different political landscape

Regarding his own team's fortunes and his hopes for a state-sponsored stadium, Reinsdorf notably:

• Said financing the stadium would require not only $1.1 billion in subsidies from an existing tax on Chicago hotel rooms but also up to $900 million in infrastructure work that already has been authorized but not funded by a tax-increment financing district that covers The 78 property. Such a move, however, will require legislative and possibly City Council approval.

• Indicated he’s on a fast track, hoping to begin preliminary construction work later this year and play in the new stadium by the 2028 season.

• Conceded that the Sox and the Chicago Bears may be competing for the same public-revenue source, the hotel tax, to pay for new Chicago arenas, but said the two family-owned teams are trying to work out a mutually beneficial deal. One thing that’s off the table: Sharing a stadium. “It doesn’t work,” Reinsdorf said. “You end up having a stadium that is no good for football or baseball.”

• Said he’s unsure what will happen to Guaranteed Rate and adjoining parking lots if the Sox move downtown. Constructing hundreds of new housing units and retail space is one possibility, and converting the stadium itself into a smaller home for the soccer Chicago Fire is another possibility, he said.

Reinsdorf said the “first phase” of The 78 project now being proposed will involve about $4 billion in investment — about half for a hotel, apartments and other projects and $1.8 billion to $2 billion for the stadium and needed infrastructure, such as parking and relocating nearby Metra tracks. Though the latter spending is already detailed in the TIF deal between the city and Related, Reinsdorf conceded the entire cost of the stadium, if his plan comes to fruition, would be financed by ISFA and the city TIF district.

Reinsdorf said the construction bond ISFA issues would be retired with proceeds from the hotel tax. The tax will pull in an estimated $52 million to $56 million this year — better than last year but still below the pre-COVID level, the ISFA disclosed at its monthly board meeting today. With ISFA still having $489 million in outstanding debt as of last June 30, it’s not clear that income is sufficient to pay off both that debt and finance a new Sox stadium.

Reinsdorf said all of those payments — retiring the old Soldier Field debt and the new Sox stadium debt — would be feasible by issuing new bonds with 30- to 35-year maturities.

As previously reported, Reinsdorf also is seeking to capture state sales tax from The 78 property. He said that would be as a backstop in case revenues from the hotel tax were insufficient to meet debt service, but that either way the proposed deal would “continue” rather than impose any new taxes.

As for the Bears, Reinsdorf said he’s had continuing “conversations” with team owners in an effort to keep from getting in each other’s way. “I don’t want to be in competition with the McCaskeys,” Reinsdorf said. He declined to elaborate, but political insiders are discussing rumors of a possible hike in the city’s amusement tax as a revenue source.

If he died tomorrow I'd dance at his Shiva.