Wrigley Renovation Thread

[SouthSideRyan]

Is Kankakee even in the Chicago metro area and part of that 9 mill figure? At least you could say something like Elgin.

 

It is.

[davell]

Oh dear, Alderman Tunney. You done goofed.

 

Determined to preserve the birds-eye view from rooftop clubs overlooking Wrigley Field, Ald. Tom Tunney (44th) has made a bold suggestion to the Cubs: replace the iconic landmarked centerfield scoreboard with a video scoreboard that would generate millions without blocking anybody’s view.

 

Two sources close to the negotiations said Tunney has made that suggestion repeatedly in his continuing effort to protect rooftop club owners whom the aldermen counts among his most reliable campaign contributors.

 

http://www.suntimes.com/18969116-761/wrigley-aldermans-pitch-scrap-famed-scoreboard-for-video-version-as-big-as-you-want-sources.html

What a stupid [expletive]. Can this guy please just go away? I'm surprised its gone this far.

[Brian]

Just eminent domain all the rooftop buildings and bulldoze them.

[Guest]

As much as I'd like for Rosemont to be a viable option, it would be really, really bad. No walk up traffic because of the sterile location(which also kills the tourism attendance) and distant public transport options. Planes flying overhead. It's in the suburbs, but considering the layout and the likely congestion, the only people who'd really save any significant time are people to the South/Southwest of the city. And while I have a fondness for Naperville, making it easier on those couple hundred thousand people is not going to remotely compensate for those who now have a much tougher haul from the city(if they even bother at all). There's just no way that ends up as a net positive, in order to haul in so much more revenue to make building new worth it, they'd have to kill any semblance of atmosphere and hurt themselves in recurring attendance.

 

Also, I'm beginning to think Tom Tunney might have a learning disability. Ricketts attempts to negotiate with them to relax landmark restrictions so they can better generate revenue, and we've reached a point where his response is "well what if we remove the huge landmarked scoreboard"?

[Lefty]

Skokie. They have the land ready to be condemned right near the highway and the Yellow Line extension from Howard and a Greyhound Bus station.

 

What land is this?

 

Driven on Dempster west of Skokie Blvd. (Cicero) lately? All the Section 8 residents to the north can also be moved to the new "Projects at Wrigley Field" to make room for the restaurants, bars and hotels.

[Careless]

The blue line sucks, takes forever to get anywhere and is not located near the area described. And buses are not decent. Compare to citi or Yankees stadium that have multiple trains right across the street. Yankees stadium is a few minutes from manhattan and the trip is okay. Citi is far from anything and blows. This would be worse than citi.

 

As someone who once tried to take public transit to a DePaul game, I agree public transportation to the game would be terrible. It would be a lot easier for driving to the game though.

Just the traffic from a full AllState Arena event is a catastrophe on that exit. A full Cubs game would be twice as many people, which means much worse than twice as much traffic on the local roads.

There are much more people and many more people with money inside the city and those are the people that baseball teams depend on to sell seats

There are about two cities in the country this is true of (excluding young, very low density cities). One has a view of the Statue of Liberty, the other has a view of Alcatraz. I've never seen either of those from Chicago.

For the six million (repeat, six million) people living outside the city, Wrigley is currently in a horrendous location with no decent parking solution.

I certainly wasn't complaining when I spent the last six years living a couple of blocks from the Main Street Purple Line station, despite being in the suburbs. And it's a density issue. Maybe there's a place in the core suburbs that makes sense and has good travel options for that amount of traffic (I don't know), but anywhere you put it, you won't see people from both the Indiana counties and Kenosha having an easy time getting there.

[SouthSideRyan]

jersey cubs fan wrote:

There are much more people and many more people with money inside the city and those are the people that baseball teams depend on to sell seats

There are about two cities in the country this is true of (excluding young, very low density cities). One has a view of the Statue of Liberty, the other has a view of Alcatraz. I've never seen either of those from Chicago.

 

For more than half the games it's true. How many suburb people work in the suburbs??

[Guest]

jersey cubs fan wrote:

There are much more people and many more people with money inside the city and those are the people that baseball teams depend on to sell seats

There are about two cities in the country this is true of (excluding young, very low density cities). One has a view of the Statue of Liberty, the other has a view of Alcatraz. I've never seen either of those from Chicago.

 

For more than half the games it's true. How many suburb people work in the suburbs??

The vast majority of them.

[Careless]

Even the ratio of commuters going suburbs->city to city->suburbs isn't that high anymore.

[Guest]

Even the ratio of commuters going suburbs->city to city->suburbs isn't that high anymore.

 

Reverse rush hour on the Edens is BRUTAL

 

I'm glad I rarely, if ever, have to go westbound on 94 on weekday mornings.

[Ryne Ween]

The fact is that this city has horrible traffic and Cubs games will be a bitch to get to for a majority of people wherever they put it. Since wrigley's history and neighborhood setting is material to the popularity of the team only a jackass would move the team elsewhere.

 

Considering its valuation as part of the sale, Ricketts would be selling the land/stadium at an amazing loss while turning off a significant portion of the fanbase.

 

Basically, it makes no sense to move the team and so it will not happen. If the city, the team and basically everybody could come together on providing one or two west-east connecting CTA trains it would make getting around the north neighborhoods much easier and would be quite condusive to commerce.

[BeerHere]

I said this earlier in the thread and was ridiculed for it, I'm saying it again. If you rely on Chicago politicians, you are making a mistake. Tunney is a cog in the self-serving political wheel that is the City of Chicago. He's doing what his $upporters are telling him to do. To get anything done the Cubs are going to have to push the envelope and doing that now means using the leverage that is in front of them.

[BeerHere]

The fact is that this city has horrible traffic and Cubs games will be a bitch to get to for a majority of people wherever they put it. Since wrigley's history and neighborhood setting is material to the popularity of the team only a jackass would move the team elsewhere.

 

Considering its valuation as part of the sale, Ricketts would be selling the land/stadium at an amazing loss while turning off a significant portion of the fanbase.

 

Basically, it makes no sense to move the team and so it will not happen. If the city, the team and basically everybody could come together on providing one or two west-east connecting CTA trains it would make getting around the north neighborhoods much easier and would be quite condusive to commerce.

The land that Wrigley sits on is extremely valuable. If they tear down the ballpark they could make use that land for a multitude of different initiatives to make money - housing, restaurants, hotel, etc. I'm not saying that it is likely, but to state that the value of the ballpark is high or drives the value of the franchise is wrong. It's a 100 year old landmark. Nothing more. It has falling concrete, inadequate facilities, rusting, falling apart, etc. I'm sure it is tied to the value of the franchise but there are other components that are more, or at least equally as important.

[Guest]

I said this earlier in the thread and was ridiculed for it, I'm saying it again. If you rely on Chicago politicians, you are making a mistake. Tunney is a cog in the self-serving political wheel that is the City of Chicago. He's doing what his $upporters are telling him to do. To get anything done the Cubs are going to have to push the envelope and doing that now means using the leverage that is in front of them.

As the Cubs showed with their negotiations with Mesa, they're willing to involve an outside party to move things along.

[Sammy Sofa]

I said this earlier in the thread and was ridiculed for it, I'm saying it again. If you rely on Chicago politicians, you are making a mistake. Tunney is a cog in the self-serving political wheel that is the City of Chicago. He's doing what his $upporters are telling him to do.

 

Yeah, no idea why anyone would ridicule something like this. No idea at all.

[Ryne Ween]

The land that Wrigley sits on is extremely valuable. If they tear down the ballpark they could make use that land for a multitude of different initiatives to make money - housing, restaurants, hotel, etc. I'm not saying that it is likely, but to state that the value of the ballpark is high or drives the value of the franchise is wrong. It's a 100 year old landmark. Nothing more. It has falling concrete, inadequate facilities, rusting, falling apart, etc. I'm sure it is tied to the value of the franchise but there are other components that are more, or at least equally as important.

 

Obviously the condition of the park was taken into account in sale to ricketts. If you think that land converted to another use is worth more than its use as a stadium than you are wrong.

[Guest]

The fact is that this city has horrible traffic and Cubs games will be a bitch to get to for a majority of people wherever they put it. Since wrigley's history and neighborhood setting is material to the popularity of the team only a jackass would move the team elsewhere.

 

Considering its valuation as part of the sale, Ricketts would be selling the land/stadium at an amazing loss while turning off a significant portion of the fanbase.

 

Basically, it makes no sense to move the team and so it will not happen. If the city, the team and basically everybody could come together on providing one or two west-east connecting CTA trains it would make getting around the north neighborhoods much easier and would be quite condusive to commerce.

 

What was paid for Wrigley in the sale is a sunk cost, though, and shouldn't matter when determining what is more likely to be cost effective and profitable going forward (that's not to suggest that it's even likely that a new stadium would be - I'm not near smart/informed enough to know anything about that).

[Guest]

The fact is that this city has horrible traffic and Cubs games will be a bitch to get to for a majority of people wherever they put it. Since wrigley's history and neighborhood setting is material to the popularity of the team only a jackass would move the team elsewhere.

 

Considering its valuation as part of the sale, Ricketts would be selling the land/stadium at an amazing loss while turning off a significant portion of the fanbase.

 

Basically, it makes no sense to move the team and so it will not happen. If the city, the team and basically everybody could come together on providing one or two west-east connecting CTA trains it would make getting around the north neighborhoods much easier and would be quite condusive to commerce.

The land that Wrigley sits on is extremely valuable. If they tear down the ballpark they could make use that land for a multitude of different initiatives to make money - housing, restaurants, hotel, etc. I'm not saying that it is likely, but to state that the value of the ballpark is high or drives the value of the franchise is wrong. It's a 100 year old landmark. Nothing more. It has falling concrete, inadequate facilities, rusting, falling apart, etc. I'm sure it is tied to the value of the franchise but there are other components that are more, or at least equally as important.

 

The land is far less valuable once it ceases to be the land that Wrigley Field is on (not that it wouldn't be valuable, of course).

[Guest]

I said this earlier in the thread and was ridiculed for it, I'm saying it again. If you rely on Chicago politicians, you are making a mistake. Tunney is a cog in the self-serving political wheel that is the City of Chicago. He's doing what his $upporters are telling him to do.

 

Yeah, no idea why anyone would ridicule something like this. No idea at all.

 

I know adding dollar signs in place of s's (how do you even write that?) really helps in getting your point across without looking crazy.

[Ding Dong Johnson]

Guys, I think he's saying Chicago politicians might be in it for the money.

[SouthSideRyan]

jersey cubs fan wrote:

There are much more people and many more people with money inside the city and those are the people that baseball teams depend on to sell seats

There are about two cities in the country this is true of (excluding young, very low density cities). One has a view of the Statue of Liberty, the other has a view of Alcatraz. I've never seen either of those from Chicago.

 

For more than half the games it's true. How many suburb people work in the suburbs??

The vast majority of them.

 

non-jawdle division?

 

ETA: But seriously, that surprises me.

[BeerHere]

Sorry, am I stating the obvious?

[Guest]

jersey cubs fan wrote:

There are much more people and many more people with money inside the city and those are the people that baseball teams depend on to sell seats

There are about two cities in the country this is true of (excluding young, very low density cities). One has a view of the Statue of Liberty, the other has a view of Alcatraz. I've never seen either of those from Chicago.

 

For more than half the games it's true. How many suburb people work in the suburbs??

The vast majority of them.

 

non-jawdle division?

 

ETA: But seriously, that surprises me.

 

In my own job search and looking for others, it's always surprised me how many different companies have significant presence in the suburbs. Sears, Allstate, Redbox, Motorola, etc. You get some reverse commuters there too, but in my limited experience there's definitely more local workers than city workers in my world(Northwest suburbs).

[Sammy Sofa]

Sorry, am I stating the obvious?

 

Well, considering it's "Chicago politicians" that will ultimately lead to this getting done with Tunney as little more than an afterthought, yeah, you're being kind of ridiculous.

[Ryne Ween]

In my own job search and looking for others, it's always surprised me how many different companies have significant presence in the suburbs. Sears, Allstate, Redbox, Motorola, etc. You get some reverse commuters there too, but in my limited experience there's definitely more local workers than city workers in my world(Northwest suburbs).

 

Professional service firms are gonna have huge central business district presences in cities. These are popular jobs for young people, city dwellers and usually result in a higher level of disposable income than your typical suburbanite who has a family and works in Algonquin. I think those people generally have a longer lead time on game-attending plans and are more likely to make a day out of going wrigley.