Joe Ricketts Hates Obama And How It Could Kill Wrigley Fixes

[WilcoFan]

Serious question: If it's a lock that the city would make money on this, why aren't there private banks that would be willing to loan the money?

[Sammy Sofa]

And I wonder why the Ricketts would rather deal with the city than private lenders.

[Cubswin11]

Serious question: If it's a lock that the city would make money on this, why aren't there private banks that would be willing to loan the money?

Private Banks would likely require the Ricketts to personally guarantee any loans, put in/come up with a substantial amount of equity (talking $10's of millions in the form of cash/assets), and they likely would charge more fees/higher interest rates than the city.

[Sammy Sofa]

This guy gets it.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

ooooh, I get it now.

 

The real answer is that the city can count increased property values and revenue in the area as part of the profits from the loan, while a private bank wants all its profits in actual profit. so the city is uniquely poised to offer a good deal.

 

Dammit, NG, stop making me think about stuff.

 

Also, Starlin Castro is good at baseball because he gets a lot of hits at a position where most players aren't good batters.

[Guest]

Brett gives a nice run-down of a Ricketts interview with the Sun Times from over the weekend...

 

http://www.bleachernation.com/2012/05/23/obsessive-wrigley-renovation-watch-tom-ricketts-offers-some-comments-and-details/

 

The Cubs hope to break ground on the renovations by this Fall, and would thus like to have a vote on funding plans in the Spring session of the Illinois General Assembly. That session adjourns in eight days, on May 31. Again: the timing of this flap was really, really bad.

 

If the Cubs can’t get funding approved in time to break ground in the Fall, the renovation would have to be pushed back an entire year. That’s because the Cubs plan to conduct the renovation over three or four off-seasons. My thought: 2016 is the 100 year anniversary of the Cubs playing at Wrigley Field, so you better believe that’s when the Cubs want to be done with the renovation.

[KaiserCesar]

The likely way to subsidize a renovation trough property taxes would be through tax increment financing (TIF) which is done by creating a TIF district that captures any increase in property taxes and allocates them to a fund for redevelopment rather than going towards education and the general county and city budgets. Although if you capture property tax increases that are not a result of wrigley, you are effectively raising taxes or cutting services to everyone else because those funds are diverted. TIF is typically used for blighted areas with some glaring exceptions to that such as the Lasalle Central TIF district, so this approach could face some opposition.