New York Times: Tangling in Shadow of Wrigley's Ivy Walls

This article originally appeared in the New York Times on May 18th, 2013. A copy of the article can be found here.

About the time the first pitch was thrown at Wrigley Field in a game between the Cubs and the St. Louis Cardinals on a recent night, a local group, the East Lake View Neighbors, called a meeting to order two blocks away. The agenda was to discuss proposed Wrigley renovations that the Cubs had submitted to the City Council.

The team’s presentation included a slide show with facts, figures and renderings. As Mike Lufrano, the Cubs’ vice president for community affairs, explained the concept of bringing street fairs to Sheffield Avenue, which borders Wrigley to the east, he was stopped.

“Can you go over that again?” a man asked. “I oppose it, but I want to make sure I know what I’m opposing.”

Just a week before, Tom Ricketts, the Cubs’ chairman, broached the idea of moving the team, as unthinkable as that would seem.

This has been the tenor of negotiations since the Ricketts family bought the Cubs and Wrigley Field for $845 million in 2009 and began pushing for a stadium renovation. A deal has yet to be completed and resentment is on the rise, even though there are obvious shared interests at play.

“Wrigleyville needs the Cubs, and the Cubs need Wrigleyville,” said Representative Mike Quigley, a season-ticket holder whose district includes the stadium.

The back and forth over Wrigley’s fate is more complicated than the usual ultimatums issued by municipalities and sports franchises over stadium financing. The ballpark is wildly popular, and a protected city landmark in the heart of an affluent residential area. Navigating the sometimes byzantine world of Chicago politics can also require a steep learning curve. Another key sticking point involves the rooftop businesses across the street, which charge for seating and refreshments and have a contract with the Cubs to preserve their views of the playing field.

The Ricketts family has struggled to navigate this landscape, including failed requests for public financing and public-relations flubs. Still, the goal for all involved appears to offer common ground: improve a ballpark that will turn 100 next season, and continue a symbiotic relationship that benefits Wrigleyville, the city and the team.

Compromise, however, has remained a bitter pill.

“Everyone is wrong,” said the Illinois political insider Rich Miller, who publishes the Capitol Fax newsletter in Springfield. “But at the same time, everyone has a point.”

The Cubs submitted their latest plans to City Hall on May 1, setting the stage for public consideration of the $500 million project. The team wants to build a 175-room hotel across the street from Wrigley and a 6,000-square-foot video board in left field, and add more than 40,000 square feet of advertising signage in and around the stadium. The proposal also calls for street fairs around the park on game days, more night games and concerts, and an improvement of the baseball facilities.

The Rickettses did not intend to foot the bill because Wrigley, the third-most-popular tourist attraction in Illinois, is as much economic driver as beautiful ballpark. But attempts for direct public subsidies stalled twice, including last year, when it became known that Joe Ricketts, the family patriarch, was planning to finance what were perceived as racially tinged attacks against President Obama during his re-election campaign. (Obama is a Chicagoan, and Mayor Rahm Emanuel is his former chief of staff.)

In January, the Cubs changed course and offered to finance the construction as long as they could raise revenue through more advertising — which is restricted by Wrigley’s landmark status, zoning laws and the rooftops — and more events and concessions.

In a renewed effort to rally public support, the team has put the renovation in baseball terms. This season, Tom Ricketts said the improvements and increased team revenue would mean a World Series title for the franchise, which last won one in 1908.

The reaction has been mixed, mostly because, according to Forbes, the team has baseball’s top operating profit, $32.1 million, and is worth $1 billion, fourth highest in the major leagues, despite holding the majors’ greatest debt, $580 million. Tom Ricketts disputed Forbes’s numbers at a recent news conference but did not offer specifics.

“The Cubs are responding to the fact that as profitable as they are, they could still be more profitable,” said Roger Noll, professor of economics emeritus at Stanford. “Put simply, they want to make more money.”

This is not the first time Wrigley has been caught between tradition and the lure of modern revenue streams. When the Tribune Company bought the Cubs in 1981 for $20.5 million, it tried to install lights at Wrigley, then the only major league stadium without them. Neighborhood groups opposed the lights, and the team lost its case in the Illinois Supreme Court before eventually reaching a deal for a limited number of night games during the 1988 season.