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Sox looking at building in South Loop


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51 minutes ago, whitesoxfan99 said:

Those projections are always crap and are always over stated too.  Reinsdorf deserves nothing, the guy who won’t spend at all on free agency should not be gifted a new stadium to make his sale of the Sox worth $2b instead of $1b.

Actually Forbes and others are estimating the Sox are worth 1.75 billion and a sale would go for around two billion dollars.

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1 hour ago, chitownsportsfan said:

@South Side Hit Men Yea that's what I figured. Basically the city would be retiring a debt mostly already paid in order to take on a new, much bigger debt, that would be subject to the same downside risk except now you've increased that risk by stretching it over three decades. How many pandemics can we fit in before it's paid off?

I want some gold star plated accounting and consulting firm to project what the revenue would be if the city could use the stadium for its own uses for 200+ days a year. That's the nut here. Of course JR's greedy ass wants all that gate and licensing revenue too. f*** HIM.

The debt sounds like it isn't paid for. 95% of it still remains.

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2 minutes ago, Buehrle>Wood said:

The debt sounds like it isn't paid for. 95% of it still remains.

yea I'm very confused on that general point. Are they basically just able to pay the interest and not pay down the principle? How exactly would it be retired? Would the Illinois agency just write it off as a bad debt and take the haircut?

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13 minutes ago, shoeless_joe21 said:

This is going to play out in modern Sox fashion.

We begin with the hope of JR spending the money required, it quickly becomes apparent he won't, and ten years from now we move into the ruins of Kauffman Stadium.

...so you're saying Getz is still in charge in 10 years?

(someone had to make that joke)

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9 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

Do you really think this ballpark concept and site are mediocre? 

 

9 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

Do you really think this ballpark concept and site are mediocre? 

I think it looks nice. But I’d only need it for baseball which is more than most Chicagoans and Illinoisan need it for, which clearly would be mediocre if ownership didn’t change.  I don’t know why anyone would give him that money with how little effort he has but into being anything but mediocre for 43 seasons. But we let JR build a state of the art baseball facility, and look what we got? Letting him do it again would be like letting Rick Hahn generally manage a rebuild after he showed you he had no clue how to build a team. And the area would be mediocre for years. They are banking private business will want to build because the White Sox are there. So it will be a ghost town at worst, a construction site at best for the first several seasons after the park is built. 

Edited by Dick Allen
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6 minutes ago, Dick Allen said:

 

I think it looks nice. But I’d only need it for baseball which is more than most Chicagoans and Illinoisan need it for, which clearly would be mediocre if ownership didn’t change.  I don’t know why anyone would give him that money with how little effort he has but into being anything but mediocre for 43 seasons. But we let JR build a state of the art baseball facility, and look what we got? Letting him do it again would be like letting Rick Hahn generally manage a rebuild after he showed you he had no clue how to build a team.

The reason why you’d do this as a taxpayer isn’t baseball, it’s because a state of the art ballpark would be an anchor tenant to develop this site.

Hopefully, with the attitude of the governor and most modern politicians, this is now a case where Reinsdorf telling the government “give me this money or I move my precious team to Nashville” winds up with them quickly saying “You can take I-65 the whole way.”

Furthermore, if he’s negotiated with the developers who own this site, told them he could get this done, and pisses off the state by demanding a big fat payout for his precious team, that won’t sit well with any developers for financing in Nashville either.

If he wants this to happen, then he needs to go to the government and show them honestly how putting $1.5 billion into things returns $3 billion in value to the city over the next 30 years, and with honest, non-Trump style valuations and reasonable occupation estimates. Showing off reasonable renderings of the entire site and making Chicacago look good is a minor step in this process, but it’s one we’ve seen.

Thus, the government break even in the short term and gets the major long term benefit of the site developed.

If Reinsdorf can’t demonstrate that, then yeah the state should nicely wave goodbye on moving day. This amount seems high to me, so yeah they better be able to offer a high quality justification better than “baseball is good”.

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17 minutes ago, Dick Allen said:

So it will be a ghost town at worst,

And then we'll all get cancer and die, and one day a meteor will hit the Earth and make it unlivable for human life, so no one will even ever remember or know we were here. Jeez, dude, if you're just going to be glum about everything, carry it through to the end. 
 

Edited by WestEddy
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8 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

The reason why you’d do this as a taxpayer isn’t baseball, it’s because a state of the art ballpark would be an anchor tenant to develop this site.

Hopefully, with the attitude of the governor and most modern politicians, this is now a case where Reinsdorf telling the government “give me this money or I move my precious team to Nashville” winds up with them quickly saying “You can take I-65 the whole way.”

Furthermore, if he’s negotiated with the developers who own this site, told them he could get this done, and pisses off the state by demanding a big fat payout for his precious team, that won’t sit well with any developers for financing in Nashville either.

If he wants this to happen, then he needs to go to the government and show them honestly how putting $1.5 billion into things returns $3 billion in value to the city over the next 30 years, and with honest, non-Trump style valuations and reasonable occupation estimates. Showing off reasonable renderings of the entire site and making Chicacago look good is a minor step in this process, but it’s one we’ve seen.

Thus, the government break even in the short term and gets the major long term benefit of the site developed.

If Reinsdorf can’t demonstrate that, then yeah the state should nicely wave goodbye on moving day. This amount seems high to me, so yeah they better be able to offer a high quality justification better than “baseball is good”.

A snowball won't last long in hell, and while I big upped your awesome post outlining exactly what should happen if JR had any shread of common sense left in his noggin -- ain't no way.

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26 minutes ago, Dick Allen said:

 

I think it looks nice. But I’d only need it for baseball which is more than most Chicagoans and Illinoisan need it for, which clearly would be mediocre if ownership didn’t change.  I don’t know why anyone would give him that money with how little effort he has but into being anything but mediocre for 43 seasons. But we let JR build a state of the art baseball facility, and look what we got? Letting him do it again would be like letting Rick Hahn generally manage a rebuild after he showed you he had no clue how to build a team. And the area would be mediocre for years. They are banking private business will want to build because the White Sox are there. So it will be a ghost town at worst, a construction site at best for the first several seasons after the park is built. 

I keep making the point but if it was a multi use facility, that would have Taylor Swift concerts and rodeo championships and boat shows and hosted local little league games and so on and on and on -- it would have an order of magnitude more value to the city, the local area, and ultimately the people of Chicago.

But if JR wants to use it 81 times a year and have it mostly sit empty the rest of the time, he can take his ball down to Nashville and nobody will give a f***.

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3 minutes ago, chitownsportsfan said:

A snowball won't last long in hell, and while I big upped your awesome post outlining exactly what should happen if JR had any shread of common sense left in his noggin -- ain't no way.

The reason I’ve been into this is that on paper it can work, and it should work. Putting together a campaign around developing this site, putting it out in February, seemingly having the developers who own the site on board- these are all smart, seasoned moves. This is how you’d handle this project if you actually wanted it to happen. But the hard part was always going to be the money - Reinsdorf and the developer need to make this a good deal for the city and state as well. We will see if they have.

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25 minutes ago, chitownsportsfan said:

But if JR wants to use it 81 times a year and have it mostly sit empty the rest of the time, he can take his ball down to Nashville and nobody will give a f***.

My guess is that the White Sox and the city announce the project, JR cashes out with a deal similar to Angelos in Baltimore for tax purposes, and he has little to nothing to do with the design, and all. 

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47 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

The reason why you’d do this as a taxpayer isn’t baseball, it’s because a state of the art ballpark would be an anchor tenant to develop this site.

Hopefully, with the attitude of the governor and most modern politicians, this is now a case where Reinsdorf telling the government “give me this money or I move my precious team to Nashville” winds up with them quickly saying “You can take I-65 the whole way.”

Furthermore, if he’s negotiated with the developers who own this site, told them he could get this done, and pisses off the state by demanding a big fat payout for his precious team, that won’t sit well with any developers for financing in Nashville either.

If he wants this to happen, then he needs to go to the government and show them honestly how putting $1.5 billion into things returns $3 billion in value to the city over the next 30 years, and with honest, non-Trump style valuations and reasonable occupation estimates. Showing off reasonable renderings of the entire site and making Chicacago look good is a minor step in this process, but it’s one we’ve seen.

Thus, the government break even in the short term and gets the major long term benefit of the site developed.

If Reinsdorf can’t demonstrate that, then yeah the state should nicely wave goodbye on moving day. This amount seems high to me, so yeah they better be able to offer a high quality justification better than “baseball is good”.

All owners of 78 property need to pay property taxes that goes to schools and parks and first responders and all other city departments like all other non TIF assessed property. The city or county do not benefit if all funds in 78 continue to be TIF sequestered. 

The Sox need to pay a significant rent as well, not $0, or negative rent when you count all the subsidies the ISFA hands him beyond free rent.

The Sox also need to pay the full entertainment and sales tax rates on  tickets, concessions and parking. They current lease allows them to keep at least 50% of the ticket tax, and IIRC also concession and parking sales taxes collected, if their attendance is below 1,900,000, which it has been all but one year (2022) during the Hahn Era. It’s likely to never exceed that number again at the current park unless there is a new owner before 2026, or if they extend the lease on 35th.

Edited by South Side Hit Men
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3 minutes ago, South Side Hit Men said:

All owners of 78 property including the Sox need to pay property taxes that goes to schools and parks and first responders and all other city departments like all other non TIF assessed property. The city or county do not benefit if all funds in 78 continue to be TIF sequestered.

The Sox also need to pay the full entertainment and sales tax rates on  tickets, concessions and parking. They current lease allows them to keep at least 50% of the ticket tax, and IIRC also concession and parking sales taxes collected, if their attendance is below 1,900,000, which it has been all but one year (2022) during the Hahn Era. It’s likely to never exceed that number again at the current park unless there is a new owner before 2026.

You in finance? You seem like you have a good handle on this. The minutiae of it is almost endless. I know a lot of the times the municipal bond interest is then resold as general interest bearing debt or ends up funding...pension plans.

There's a lot of positives if the city can get the right deal. Thing is, does anybody really trust JR to want to strike a fair deal? Chicago isn't the best run city but it's not the worst either, and they aren't just going to bend over for him. 

Some of you guys have said the general political will is strong, but we'll see how that goes after it gets out of the hyper local interests into citywide politics.

Edited by chitownsportsfan
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7 minutes ago, chitownsportsfan said:

You in finance? You seem like you have a good handle on this. The minutiae of it is almost endless. I know a lot of the times the municipal bond interest is then resold as general interest bearing debt or ends up funding...pension plans.

There's a lot of positives if the city can get the right deal. Thing is, does anybody really trust JR to want to strike a fair deal? Chicago isn't the best run city but it's not the worst either, and they aren't just going to bend over for him. 

Some of you guys have said the general political will is strong, but we'll see how that goes after it gets out of the hyper local interests into citywide politics.

Yes I was, and read through the leases last Summer, which can be found in the post linked below.

The post below covers both the Sox and Bears. The Sox’ favorable original terms were sweetened over the most recent two extensions.

The also get $15M annual (amount grows each year, unlike the hotel tax revenue) to keep for “renovations”, plus he keeps 50% of all ticket, parking and concession taxes except in 2022, when they returned a small portion for barely going over 1.9M.

 

The Bears deal was even worse. They borrowed $398 million, but $640M is owed today, plus the city had to kick in $20-$29M each year since 2019 to cover the shortfall between budgeted hotel tax revenue and actual.

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4 hours ago, Sleepy Harold said:

some tidbits

Say what you will about Jerry, and guys like SSHM are doing that, but this is a brilliant deal and proposal taking into account the real things politicians care about (perception and development). Even if it extends where the tax goes, no "new tax" is an easy sell, and residents don't pay hotel tax so it's mostly subsidized by tourists.

Those other things SSHM mentioned are already in place and no one complains about them or knows about them. 

Pritzker gets to stay true to no new tax on his watch for billionaires stadiums.

Johnson sheds the soldier field debt and essentially politically trades it for the development of an area the city has been after for decades. 

Jerry gets to maintain his sweet heart deal and use found funds to further subsidize his new stadium absent debt.

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3 hours ago, South Side Hit Men said:

The City is already eating an additional $29M in debt service due to hotel tax shortfalls. Tourism remains lower than 2019 levels, so negative actual growth rates the past four years and counting vs. the 5.5% annual growth projected when these scams were concocted by Jerry and the McCaskeys.

This is on top of Jerry's property tax free, rent free, maintenance paid for, keep every last nickel 38 year lease, and of course he wants a shitload more, because it's never enough. 

What kind of "rosy" projections and tax shortfalls will Chicagoans have to eat over the next 30-40 years to fund this $1.5B welfare payment, plus all the likely additional cost overruns and other "surprises"?

No surprise they floated this giant turd on a Friday evening. Pritzker must flush this scheme down the toilet immediately, if not sooner.

No one cares about this stuff but for you and small pockets of people. These things are already in place. No one is marching on city hall against them.

Tourism in 2023 was near record highs, maybe just below 2019. And sorry that people didn't plan for covid crushing tourism across the world.

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1 hour ago, Balta1701 said:

The reason why you’d do this as a taxpayer isn’t baseball, it’s because a state of the art ballpark would be an anchor tenant to develop this site.

 

FWIW Related Midwest has been looking for a solution for The 78 ever since they lost out to Bally's to build a Chicago casino. That was supposed to be the cornerstone of the development.

U of I still has a research center going in there on south end of the development but I think the rest of the site is currently up in the air

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1 hour ago, WestEddy said:

And then we'll all get cancer and die, and one day a meteor will hit the Earth and make it unlivable for human life, so no one will even ever remember or know we were here. Jeez, dude, if you're just going to be glum about everything, carry it through to the end. 
 

There's a rift in the space-time continuum when Balta is unasbashedly optimistic and Dick Allen the opposite.

Easy for all Sox fans to be cynical.

Greg Hibbard (the Bulldog-esque  poster) even became cynical the last couple of seasons.  Disenchanted might be the better word.  Apathetic.

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40 minutes ago, South Side Hit Men said:

All owners of 78 property need to pay property taxes that goes to schools and parks and first responders and all other city departments like all other non TIF assessed property. The city or county do not benefit if all funds in 78 continue to be TIF sequestered. 

The Sox need to pay a significant rent as well, not $0, or negative rent when you count all the subsidies the ISFA hands him beyond free rent.

The Sox also need to pay the full entertainment and sales tax rates on  tickets, concessions and parking. They current lease allows them to keep at least 50% of the ticket tax, and IIRC also concession and parking sales taxes collected, if their attendance is below 1,900,000, which it has been all but one year (2022) during the Hahn Era. It’s likely to never exceed that number again at the current park unless there is a new owner before 2026, or if they extend the lease on 35th.

Then it sits empty for another 50 years and benefits no one at all.

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18 minutes ago, Look at Ray Ray Run said:

Say what you will about Jerry, and guys like SSHM are doing that, but this is a brilliant deal and proposal taking into account the real things politicians care about (perception and development). Even if it extends where the tax goes, no "new tax" is an easy sell, and residents don't pay hotel tax so it's mostly subsidized by tourists.

Those other things SSHM mentioned are already in place and no one complains about them or knows about them. 

Pritzker gets to stay true to no new tax on his watch for billionaires stadiums.

Johnson sheds the soldier field debt and essentially politically trades it for the development of an area the city has been after for decades. 

Jerry gets to maintain his sweet heart deal and use found funds to further subsidize his new stadium absent debt.

Yep.  I don't know why we are pretending that this isn't how major projects are done in the US today.  And if Chicago didn't do it, someone else would.

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