White Sox reportedly considering new stadium on South Loop site with $700m tax kickback attached

Chicago White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf first started leaking word last August that he might be looking for a new stadium once the team’s lease on his now-33-year-old one expires in 2029, and now the other rumor shoe has finally dropped:

The White Sox are negotiating with developer Related Midwest about the possibility of building a new ballpark on the South Loop parcel known as “The 78.”

Sources familiar with the talks, all speaking on the condition they not be named, told the Chicago Sun-Times the negotiations for a baseball-only stadium are “serious.”

That was reported yesterday by the Chicago Sun-Times, and while the sources behind it are unnamed, the paper did get a smidge of confirmation when Mayor Brandon Johnson and Reinsdorf issued a joint statement saying, “We met to discuss the historic partnership between the team and Chicago and the team’s ideas for remaining competitive in Chicago in perpetuity.” (Crain’s Chicago Business later followed up with confirmation from their own “source familiar with the discussions,” if an unnamed source who could have their own agenda for a leak can be said to be confirming anything.)

The proposed White Sox stadium site is a 62-acre parcel just south of downtown Chicago that has sat vacant ever since a railyard there was demolished in the 1970s. Developer Related Midwest bought the site in 2016. from Iraqi billionaire Nadhmi Auchi, previously convicted of fraud in what the Guardian called “the biggest political and corporate sleaze scandal to hit a western democracy since the second world war,” who may or may not still own a share of the site. Three years later, Related got $700 million in tax increment financing kickbacks approved by the city council, but hasn’t yet built anything on the site.

Who would pay for this stadium? Would it still be eligible for getting property tax kickbacks via a TIF? These are excellent questions that go entirely unexamined by the three Sun-Times reporters on the case, who instead spend 1600 words on a remarkable string of dubious reporting:

  •  “Sources said mass transit access — the nearby Roosevelt station serves the CTA’s Red, Green and Orange lines — could reduce the need for stadium parking.” The White Sox’ current stadium is also served by the red and green el lines, and is surrounded by parking lots, though whether it really “needs” them is a reasonable question.
  • “With the Chicago River just west of the site, sources also noted the possibility of water taxi service for game-day crowds.” Water taxis hold about 100 people each, and you have to get to the river in the first place to get on one, making them a better option than gondolas, maybe, but that’s about it.
  • “[Stadium consultant Marc] Ganis likened the Sox quest for a new home to the stadium development in suburban Atlanta known as The Battery. … ‘It’s been very successful.'” Successful for the Braves owners, sure; successful for the public that helped pay for it, not so much.
  • “Financing for the [current White Sox] stadium came together in an eleventh-hour deal that prevented the Sox from moving to St. Petersburg, Fla.” Guys, even Jerry Reinsdorf doesn’t pretend it prevented that!
  • “Sources said the [Chicago Fire] soccer team, which plays at Soldier Field, could move to Guaranteed Rate Field if the baseball team moves out.” If the current White Sox stadium is widely considered among the worst for baseball, it would be even more awful for soccer, since the insanely high upper decks wouldn’t even be pointing in the right direction.

More real details on this new stadium plan, including how much public money it would involve, will have to await better reporting. In the meantime, it’s clear that Reinsdorf and Mayor Johnson are definitely talking about something, and somebody with a hotline to the Sun-Times newsroom wants you to believe that it’s this South Loop site. Also Marc Ganis is still Marc Ganising. Also savvy negotiators will keep leveraging.

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20 comments on “White Sox reportedly considering new stadium on South Loop site with $700m tax kickback attached

  1. Surprised there hasn’t been talk about a new stadium for the Bulls and Blackhawks too, maybe that could be at the current white Sox stadium ha

  2. Seems like “remaining [competitive…. lolz] in Chicago in perpetuity” should have a big old * attached to the end of it. Where exactly is the team going to go to find a bigger and more lucrative market?

    1. Nashville, obviously. Just last week “somebody” released shiny renderings of what a baseball stadium somebody might build somewhere (maybe even Nashville!) could potentially but probably won’t look like.

      Or Greensboro.

      Or Boise.

      These are bigly huge markets that team owners are clamouring to leave the largest cities in the nation to get to.

  3. The Sox want Wrigleyville. I am not sure the 78 is that, as thanks to the layout it is sort of hemmed in.

    But the Sox could develop the GRF parking lots. But they won’t.

    1. I think if someone offered Jer the money (* at least 120% of the actual cost) to do it and exempted him from all liability and operating costs in perpetuity he’d probably start building tomorrow.

      Always assuming he could find contractors willing to work for him, I guess.

  4. Sources say that no-one involved in the preparation or sourcing of this Sun-Times article understand what “remaining competitive” actually means.

    The White Sox could demolish most of the former New Comiskey park (especially the fan seating and entertainment areas) and continue playing there without affecting their bottom line very much.

    With regard to the thus far undeveloped “tif” zone… does this actually cost the city anything (other than the lost revenue that might have come from other development if they just hadn’t handed the existing ownership that deal)?

    The land was vacant before and remains so, so they aren’t actually losing tax revenue that should have gone to the general fund. But, as noted above, they aren’t getting what they might have been if someone else had actually developed it.

    One of the provisions I believe all municipalities should include in TIF or similar districts is a sunset clause… basically that the developer will be responsible for paying a minimum tax (based on what the property could generate if it was fully developed as envisioned/promised) after 3-5 years regardless whether the developer has completed the promised development or not.

    PILOTs often (ok, always…) set maximum payments in lieu of property taxes… if we are basing these relationships on trust and promises, I see no reason why the PILOT cannot also specify an annual minimum payable after a given amount of time.

    1. The White Sox should develop the empty space left by the demolition of their pitching staff.

  5. Possible renderings of the new stadium:

    https://skyscraperpage.com/forum/showpost.php?p=10123020&postcount=1163

  6. Part of this land is supposed to be used for Discovery Partners Institute, some sort of tech research facility involving University of Illinois. Since Amtrak runs through this area, people could get from Champaign to Chicago in 30 minutes, if the US had decent high speed rail.

  7. “…ideas for remaining competitive in Chicago…”

    Telling Reinsdorf to take a flying leap would be the best first step.

    You know, it IS possible for an owner to serve their own interests while also doing the right thing for their fandom, the city where they play, and for baseball in general. We White Sox fans haven’t known what that is like since Bill Veeck sold the team.

    Jerry just needs to be drummed out of town, leaving the Sox and Bulls behind.

    I can recall during the last Sox stadium debacle the team making sure that even a humble little bar like McCuddy’s wasn’t allowed to re-open across the street from the new stadum, even though IL governor at the time (and candidate for prison) Jim Thompson guaranteed McCuddy’s owners multiple times they’d be able to.

    Considering his money-grubbing ways, and having been the impetus behind much of the labor strife in MLB for decades, Reinsdorf needs to be handed his walking papers, not hundreds of millions of dollars.

  8. A Peter Seidler or Steve Cohen type owner for the Sox would be pretty awesome. Yes they’ll never be the cubs- but Reinsdorf is a bottom 5 owner.

    Their post title attendance boom lasted 6 seasons. They have historical pedigree in the region and could easily be back in the top 10 attendance conversation with some exciting players.

    My guess is that Reinsdorf gets a big payday regardless of the site to stay in Chicago. Hopefully his heirs sell the team to someone who cares about winning.

  9. I mean, it’d be a terrible waste of taxpayer money like all sports stadiums, but… at least my brother, who loves his choo-choos, would love it since it’s right across the street from the Amtrak railyard that’s connected to Union Station and more than likely they’ll leave just enough space in sight-lines for avid rail watchers as an additional incentive due to them wanting to ensure that the Chicago skyscrapers are part of the scenery for when the White Sox have another losing season.

    As for the Fire… why? Wouldn’t it just be more effective to tear down Guaranteed Rate and build a brand-new facility from scratch?

    1. No, it would be better to tear down GRF and build housing that generates some tax revenue. The Fire leaving Soldier Field (where they pay rent to the city) to a new site devalues 3 properties (new Sox, new Fire, & Soldier Field).

      1. I would like the Fire to build a new soccer specific stadium on Waldron Deck (a fancy name for a parking garage) next to SF.

        As for the Sox, they can get what they want by developing all that parking space around the GRF.

        1. The current Sox parking lots don’t come with a TIF, though. Getting $700 million in tax kickbacks would make the South Loop site much sweeter, though you’d think that Related would want to be the ones profiting from that, so lots still TBD here.

      2. That would be the ideal solution; build something that people could actually use like low income housing, but let’s be realistic about what is going to actually happen.

  10. I don’t think the Guardian scribes who designated the Auchi/elf (and, really, Total, since part of the ‘resolution’ was that elf sell itself to it’s privately owned competitor…) scandal to be the ‘greatest’ sought out any information on how Puerto Rico’s finances have been “managed” by successive appointees.

    Or the bailout of western banking giants who had deliberately, wilfully and knowingly wrecked the world economy for personal bonuses and short term corporate gain by ordinary taxpayers – mostly low income – from around the world.

    Really, the whole privatize profits and socialize losses scheme the world works on now (and of which the stadium swindle is only a small part) is a far worse example of sleaze and scandal than a French corporation being ‘forced’ to absorb it’s main competitor at little or no cost to the company itself. Non-state oil companies, of course, would never consider paying fees or dividends (in cash, $30m properties in Kensington or gold plated one-off Mercedes or Lambos) to despots or anything like that.

    Maybe the G has other reasons for ignoring those other things?

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