DePaul Stadium Rushes Ahead
Rahm pushes everything forward under the guise of the McPier Exposition Authority:
- The architecture firm that proposed a glass-walled DePaul University basketball arena topped with an undulating roof was awarded the design contract Monday morning by McCormick Place officials.
The board of the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority voted unanimously to approve a $7.2 million contract to New Haven, Conn.-based Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects, one of six firms vying for the contract.
The firm also designed DePaul's new theater school.
Board chairman Jack Greenberg and board member Frank Clark Jr., both of whom also serve on DePaul's board, participated in the vote, as did board member Dan Hynes, whose father, Thomas, has served as DePaul's lobbyist.
All three abstained from voting earlier this year when the authority decided to proceed with the project
Well well well. Lookie there at the boldfaced paragraph - that explains everything. No wonder this deal stunk to high heaven. Insiders galore!
Labels: we got nothing
posted by SCC at 12:03 AM
44 Comments:
Greenberg is the former head of McDonald's and Clark of ComEd. Bet they have a Mickey D's outlet in the building and use electricity.
Please don't bring JFed back ...
https://medium.com/health-fitness-1/97bcce70356d
Be happy. Be Glad. Chicago is getting a beautiful brand new basketball arena. A setting that will help promote much needed love and togetherness. The City is blessed.
Millions of dollars of Taxpayers money out the door to an out of state vendor to construct a building for a private institution that has no out of state following for their basketball team.....this is creepy and now to find out the names of the inner circle...how maddening can this be.....Rahm the Showman.....bucks out the door when this city is broke....YUCK. He's making a circus out of Cgo.
Plenty of money for useless bullshit but not a cent to shore up our pensions. Remember this officers when you attempt to go out of your way to do work you don't have to do. Put the blinders on. Take the winners to jail and the losers to the morgue.
Whaaat?!?
DePaul hires the daddy of one of the board members as their lobbyist?
And then DePaul magically gets the project approved? Using public funding?
Your tax dollars at work.
Remember this the next time someone holds the Hynes family up as a paragon of virtue.
Such b.s.
Don't hire cops just build a stadium for a school that could build two w/their own money and who uses it .......we all know the answer to that.
I'm sure Rahm made sure he made the mandated contributions to our pension before he siphoned money off for this right??? Right Rahmmie??
Don't forget we need pension "reform"!! Rahm is always looking out for the taxpayers( sarcasm off)
Butt-ugly building, bringing more congestion to a relatively high-end residential area, financed by a bunch of politically connected people.
What could go wrong?
But YOU, heavy handed, brutish, greedy, whiny-ass bacon boys make sure you complete your Ethics Training in a timely fashion.
It's nice to see Chicago hiring out-of-state companies to do work in Chicago. There is no qualified architectural firm here? Or maybe there is no firm that was willing to give any kickbacks to the powers-that-be. I am sure the construction company will be local.
No wonder this state has a high unemployment number.
You guys gripe when you aren't getting raises? What about the tax base that doesn't get contracts to do work in this state?
Who is going to pay for your raises and pensions? The people collecting welfare?
The new DePaul Stadium? Just another venue to avoid and not patronize.
That was quick. It took me longer to decide which color to repaint my bedroom. Things go quick when the rails are greased.
"New Haven, Conn.-based Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects"
Damn, if we only had an architect or two that working in Chicago or all of Illinois that could bid on these contracts.
Doesn't DePauls basketball team suck?
This place will be perfect for Rahms midnight basketball.
Why does it surprise anyone that the fix was in? Which of Ramhs or Shortshanks old friends will be building this white elephant? Money for specialty/private schools, bike/bus lanes, maggie parks and every other pet project but none for cops. SHAMEFUL...
Some good news for a change from Second City Cop.
From the comments in the Sun-Times it seems that the peasants are not too pleased with Rahm's White Elephant.
But one thing is odd, the winning architectural firm isn't from Chicago, and there's a slew of real World Class Architects downtown, just 15-20 minutes from this site. Skidmore Owings & Merrill maybe the most famous but Helmut Jahn isn't far behind (weird dude, wore a Black Cape) and he designs fantastic buildings that don't fall apart either ;-) [Skidmore Arch's have a friggen attitude problem, major league assholes.]
Why do you think the US Attorney's job here is still vacant? That's Obama's collusion with his political masters, including the two Senators.
Richard J. and Richard M. went to DePaul
And our pension and contract... Oh well, just like always because we don't stick together and FOP is useless.
And to add insult to this they went to CT to find a architect.
I understand if your DePaul you don't want to play at Allstate arena in rosemont anymore. Reality is you have a terrible product, and you were offered the united center for free. My guess is attendance at this new arena is similar or less than that at Allstate. Thanks Rahm for wasting tax dollars
You know, there's a point that no one seems to bring up. Tax Increment Financing has strict definitions and laws. Here's one of them "When an increase in site value and private investment generates an increase in tax revenues, it is the "tax increment." Tax Increment Financing dedicates tax increments within a certain defined district to finance the debt that is issued to pay for the project. TIF was designed to channel funding toward improvements in distressed, underdeveloped, or underutilized parts of a jurisdiction where development might otherwise not occur. TIF creates funding for public or private projects by borrowing against the future increase in these property-tax revenues." It is NOT a big pot of opaque money. The funding has to stay with each project, otherwise there will be a size 20 shoe dropping later on... like that never happens in Chicago.
We are directly responsible for this matter. If we had architects in Chicago, they would not have needed to go to New Haven, CT.
Huh? We have architects? You say, scads of architects? More architects than Barney has purple fur? Well, WTF!?
Chicago=
Murder Capital of the WORLD.
Builds B-Ball stadium as it's #1 priority.
I guess that says it all about the cause of the gang violence.
"Let them eat cake" 'MA' or
Here we might say, pass the chicken
Why does any university (De Paul) need a lobbyist? Do the others have them too? What are they paid?
Rahm loves basketball.
Anonymous said...
It's nice to see Chicago hiring out-of-state companies to do work in Chicago. There is no qualified architectural firm here? Or maybe there is no firm that was willing to give any kickbacks to the powers-that-be. I am sure the construction company will be local.
No wonder this state has a high unemployment number.
You guys gripe when you aren't getting raises? What about the tax base that doesn't get contracts to do work in this state?
Who is going to pay for your raises and pensions? The people collecting welfare?
The new DePaul Stadium? Just another venue to avoid and not patronize.
9/24/2013 04:42:00 AM
A huge majority of workers reconstructing the Red Line and contractors installing new gas lines in conjunction with People's Gas live in Indiana or Wisconsin.
OT:
Unhappy anniversary
From: Ted Dabrowski tdabrowski@illinoispolicy.org
Tue, Sep 24, 2013 10:21 am
Six months ago, Illinois overtook California to become the state with the second-highest unemployment rate in the nation, behind only Nevada. It hasn’t budged since.
Last week’s release from the Bureau of Labor Statistics detailed yet another month of stalled unemployment numbers for Illinois. The state’s August unemployment rate remained at 9.2% — 1.9 percentage points above the national average, which fell to 7.3% in August.
Compared to its neighbors, Illinois fared even worse. The state’s unemployment rate is now a full 2 percentage points above its neighbors’ average, which fell to 7.2% from 7.3% one month earlier.
Illinois’ unemployment rate has remained above 9% since December of last year.
The number of unemployed Illinoisans also remains high, at 602,000. This is the third month in a row the number of unemployed has remained above 600,000.
But Illinoisans know it’s not just those out of work who are suffering: many breadwinners are stuck working part time, although they want and need a full-time job.
That’s why BLS tracks several unemployment figures, including the broadest measure of worker unemployment called U-6. The U-6 rate includes not just the unemployed, but also people working part time while seeking full-time work, as well as unemployed people who haven’t looked for work in the past four months but have sought employment in the past year.
Illinois’ most recent U-6 unemployment rate is 16.1%, meaning more than 1 million Illinoisans are unemployed or underemployed.
Five years after the end of the Great Recession, Illinois still has an unemployment rate nearly 5 percentage points higher than its pre-recession average and there are 147,000 fewer Illinoisans in the labor force compared to August 2007.
The state is still missing 177,000 nonfarm payroll jobs compared to August 2007.
Six months of the second-highest unemployment rate is no anniversary to be proud of.
Ted Dabrowski
Vice President of Policy
Illinois Policy Institute
190 S. LaSalle St.
Suite 1630
Chicago, Illinois 60603
(312) 346.5700
This stadium, will be the perfect venue, for concerts by bands, managed and promoted by Rahm's brother, Ari.
Remember boys and girls...
The same bunch of people are seeking to completely divest you of your pensions and walk you backwards in pay.
Muni employee pensions are the big pots of "free" money they've been drooling over for years.
This shit didn't go away when Miriam Santos told Daley Inc. "NO!"
Dirty pricks set her up and sent her to prison.
They laid low for many years because their plan was exposed and it was "too hot" for them to make their play.
Heh... Intentional under-funding to create this "pension crisis" in order to set the table for total divesture?
"We need a cover story for this..."
*GREEDY COPS GET CUSH PENSIONS AND EARLY RETIREMENTS WHILE REGULAR PEOPLE GET NUTHIN'!*
Never you mind the shit-talk when times were good...
"You dumb-ass Cops! We laugh at you and your $60k a year job. We clear $100K+ after taxes, we have $500K in our 401K, we take nice vacations and drive nice cars while you guys drive beaters and spend all your time working to keep your brats in school and making the nut on your 1300 s/f shack in Dunning/Mt. Greenwood. Life is GOOD for us and it sucks to be YOU, dumbass Coppers!"
Now everybody is screaming about "How the fuck did you dumb-ass Coppers get to have SO MUCH and we had to down-size, sell off, foreclose and eat our 401K's for pennies on the dollar? Why should YOU get a pension, Cop? You guys are "public servants" and you got the nerve to be living high on the hog with your cush benefits and early retirements! We hope they bust your union and take your pensions away!"
What a difference less than 20 years makes...
Is that $7.2 million just for the design and blueprints?
How come these deals slide through so fast but it takes a year to grade a promotional exam?
Hynes for Mayor...remember when he ran for about 2 days?? Then they ran the Kid for Governor. Squeeeek!! Payday.
Irish still doing it. Hynes-Madigan-Daley- Cullerton. And those southside Irish are so proud of them.
Look at the big picture people. This stadium isn't only for DePaul. They play only about 20 or so home games a year. When the new casino is finally approved and built it will be right in the neighborhood, and this will be its entertainment venue.
Anonymous Anonymous said...
You know, there's a point that no one seems to bring up. Tax Increment Financing has strict definitions and laws. Here's one of them "When an increase in site value and private investment generates an increase in tax revenues, it is the "tax increment." Tax Increment Financing dedicates tax increments within a certain defined district to finance the debt that is issued to pay for the project. TIF was designed to channel funding toward improvements in distressed, underdeveloped, or underutilized parts of a jurisdiction where development might otherwise not occur. TIF creates funding for public or private projects by borrowing against the future increase in these property-tax revenues." It is NOT a big pot of opaque money. The funding has to stay with each project, otherwise there will be a size 20 shoe dropping later on... like that never happens in Chicago.
9/24/2013 08:50:00 AM
I posted a question about this a few days ago. How is building a new school or an addition to a school, using TIF monies, allowed?
I've been puzzled as to why Mayor Emanuel is so insistent on spending $33,000,000 taxpayer dollars toward building DePaul University a basketball arena near McCormick place when there are so many more pressing needs for those dollars. It finally dawned on me why when I looked at a map of the proposed site and saw there was one plot that was labeled simply "future development".
Let's see, a large hotel next to a convention center drawing hundreds of thousands of out of town visitors a year. What better place for Mayor Emanuel to put his new city owned casino?
Now it makes perfect sense.
Hynes-Madigan-Daley- Cullerton....Lucky the City Comptroller Amer Ahmed could not get his cut like Lois Scott and others before he was indicted. Rahm is dealing more than Daley ever did.
To Lou: Don't know if you have read my post at 9/24/2013 04:34:00 PM
I am glad to see that someone other than me has figured out what is happening here. This has always been about more than just building a stadium for DePaul. There is no doubt in my mind that this is where the casino will eventually be, and this new facility will be part of it. This is why Rahm wants to make the area into an entertainment district. As the city and CPS's financial situation gets worse, a city owned casino will become an easier sell to the citizens and legislature, especially when the money will be promised to pay down debt, and "help the children." The only problem is Quinn, and he will probably be gone after the next election.
So De Paul university is going to put $70M into a basketball stadium?
If your college has $70M to put into a basketball stadium, you are paying WAY TOO much tuition.
READ:
Total BS.
The new stadium is really for the chillins, when they are old enough, to drop tokens and cash into the Casino on Lake M.
that's change one can believe in
I went to DePaul and I think this is a massive rip off of the Chicago taxpayers. DePaul sends so much alumni solicitation mail each year, I can fill an entire recycling can out here in the burbs with it. If they're so hard pressed for funds, have the Vincentians pass the plate, set out donation jars and have bake sales to fund their new stadium, or use United Center for free. They could pay for plenty of odpo's in case wealthy alumni are afraid to go there.
Arch's have a friggen attitude problem, major league assholes.]
9/24/2013 07:13:00 AM.
helmutt jahn - state of Illinois building"Thompson center" aka Chicago toilet seat, aka floors can't hold the law library, beach umbrellas issued to office workers for shade, yep great idea to give the stadium job to that coked out nutjob, lmao
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