What a crock. Mayor Daley is 'kicking around' (publicly) building a new domed stadium near the University of Illinois (Halsted and Roosevelt area).
Daley floats stadium plan
Mayor hopes to lure 2nd football team, Olympics to Chicago. Looking for ways to build a domed stadium to enhance a possible bid for the 2016 Olympics, Mayor Richard Daley has privately floated the idea of trying to lure a second NFL team to Chicago, sources close to the situation told the Tribune.
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“This sounds like the ultimate trial balloon that turns into a lead zeppelin,” said Terry Lefton, editor-at-large for Sports Business Journal, when told of the local discussions.
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“Stadiums are used too few hours a year to make it profitable,” said Allen Sanderson, a sports economist at the University of Chicago. “They only exist because municipalities prop them up financially.”If Chicago had a second team, it would be utter stupidity if it weren't forced to play in the same facility.“
Sanderson, who considers the renovation of Soldier Field a ”huge mistake,“ said, ”It's too small for the city and for the Olympics.“
Preparing a city for an Olympics is a very expensive proposition, and cost overruns are the norm, Sanderson said. Athens, for example, ended up with costs of $14.6 billion for the 2004 Games, more than double the original estimate of $5.9 billion, he said. He added that overruns can lead to debt obligations for extended periods.
In the short run, Olympics ”almost uniformly end up costing more and producing less than a city thought,“ said Carl Tannenbaum, chief economist at LaSalle Bank.
”What a city is speculating on is that the Olympics will raise its profile to the point, through increased tourism and convention business, that it pays for itself,“ he said. ”Essentially, it's a major marketing investment a city hopes will pay off in the long run. And that's hard to measure.“
We would like to go on record as vehemently protesting this proposal, for a couple of reasons. Stadiums are a boondoggle, benefiting only the companies that own the land, companies that are involved in the construction, and owners of the teams that subsequently play there. Second, the City of Chicago is already in increasingly dire financial straits, and spending a billion dollars (or more) is not a good use of limited resources. Why not build those bike paths along Lower Wacker promised back in 2001 instead?
”Monorail“ /Simpson's song.
Tags: architecture, /building
