The White Sox continue to paper the town with pretty renderings of their proposed taxpayer-funded new stadium — along with vague promises of the community benefits the ballpark is supposed to bring — so it’s good to see Gov. J.B. Pritzker express at least some initial skepticism over the plan.
“The information that we’ve gotten so far is still very limited,” Pritzker said earlier this week. “How the taxpayer is going to benefit from this still hasn’t been put forward to us. It’s just what the need is. And of course, I think the pictures that we’ve all seen, the drawings anyway in the newspaper, all look terrific. But again, that’s not enough to make a priority, in my view for Springfield.”
With all the bedrock issues both Chicago and Illinois need to fund and help solve, Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf has a long way — a really long way — to go to make a convincing case that he should leap to the front of the line and turn to the public to help him build a $1.2 billion stadium on the site of The 78.
So as Reinsdorf makes his rounds of public officials, we agree with Pritzker reminding the billionaire sports franchise owner that Illinois has bigger fish to fry than helping figure out how to pay for a ballpark, and that funding for the stadium isn’t just there for taking.
“I start out really reluctant … unless a case is made that the investment yields a long-term return for the taxpayers that we can justify in some way,” Pritzker said. “I haven’t seen that yet.”
Admittedly, stadium funding — if it happens at all — would not be snatched directly from the public treasury. The Sox and Related Midwest, which owns The 78 development site, want the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority to sell bonds to finance the ballpark.
But the bonds would be backed by a tax increment finance district around The 78 that would pay for infrastructure improvements; the existing statewide 2% ISFA hotel tax; and a new special district that would help pay off the bond debt with $400 million in city and state sales tax revenues that the improved site is expected to generate.
The ISFA currently has outstanding bonds used to fund the 2003 Soldier Field renovation and to improve the Sox’s current home at Guaranteed Rate Field, which are now due to be paid off in 2034; those bonds would be extended another 30 years.
But that $400 million to help the White Sox — a franchise valued at $2 billion — could be better used maintaining or improving public schools, shoring up public transit, funding hunger programs, supporting arts initiatives or even just filling potholes on DuSable Lake Shore Drive.
Neither Reinsdorf, White Sox officials nor Related Midwest have met with Pritzker about the stadium. State legislative leaders were shown the proposal last week, however.
“The idea of taking taxpayer dollars and subsidizing the building of a stadium as opposed to, for example, subsidizing the building of a birthing center, just to give the example, does not seem like the stadium ought to have higher priority,” Pritzker said.
Meanwhile, we couldn’t help but contrast Pritzker’s remarks about the stadium against those made by Mayor Brandon Johnson.
The mayor earlier this month said he was open to help subsidize the stadium. And last month, Johnson said he discussed the proposed stadium and “did appreciate ... what they’re considering, it’s the way new stadiums should and could look. That they have community benefit.”
We get it: The mayor is keeping an open mind on the options. But neither the mayor nor the Sox have yet outlined what that community benefit would be. Is it redeveloping the seas of parking lots around Guaranteed Rate Field, if the Sox decamp? Is it creating better public access to the Chicago River along The 78, once the property is redeveloped?
More than a month has passed since the Sun-Times’ Fran Spielman, Tim Novak and David Roeder first reported the news of the stadium plan.
And the public has yet to hear, from any party involved, some specifics about what the public would get for its money, besides an upscale neighborhood that was slated to be built anyway, and a new baseball park. Such information is crucial, especially in light of what experts who’ve studied these things say: New ballparks simply don’t generate the economic benefit to communities that sports teams claim.
With that in mind, Pritzker’s comments are a reminder of the true cost the public might be asked to pay.
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