Las Urbanistas

By Alexa Aguilar Tribune staff reporter May 8, 2007

Deep underneath a Streeterville street, John Henry Propeck was moving pile after pile of debris and sandy soil to create an underground parking garage for a new 47-story condo building at the corner of Illinois Street and McClurg Court.

Then he scooped up a chunk of metal in the bucket of his backhoe. The next load unearthed a T-shaped bar, then a 40-foot chain.

When he pieced the parts together last month, he realized he had discovered a 200-pound boat anchor buried deep beneath Chicago’s streets.

The anchor is a rusty reminder that the solid ground Chicago is built on wasn’t always so solid, and that boats were once moored in what is now the Streeterville neighborhood. Those who pulled the anchor from the earth are even asking whether it could have belonged to Capt. George Streeter, a gun-running hustler who supposedly ran his vessel aground 450 feet from Lake Michigan’s shore in 1886 and decided to stay put, creating the neighborhood that bears his name.

Streeter is the stuff of Chicago legend, a man who defied city officials who tried to take his “District of Lake Michigan” — the hundreds of acres of landfill that eventually amassed around the beached boat where Streeter and his fellow scofflaws drank, ran brothels and generally reveled in ignoring authority.

Propeck and a few members of the excavation crew knew none of the history until an acquaintance half-jokingly suggested that the anchor could have belonged to Streeter. They fiddled around on the Internet until they found a picture of Streeter standing by his ship, the Reutan, with a similar anchor chained to its prow. “I think it’s pretty interesting,” said Propeck, who has been a construction worker in Chicago for more than 25 years. “I’ve never got nothing like this before. I’ve found safes before with holes bored through them. But nothing like this.”

It would be difficult to verify that the anchor was Streeter’s, said Libby Mahoney, chief curator of the Chicago Historical Society. Its rusted surface and clunky chain bear no lettering or mark other than the number 97.

The anchor appears to be a standard fisherman’s anchor from that era, Mahoney said.

Whether the anchor actually belonged to Streeter’s vessel, the discovery is enough to excite Chicagoans, she said.

“All of this points to the fact that Chicagoans love the history of their city,” she said. “They are proud of it. And they take their history very seriously.”

MCL Companies, the developer of the Park View condos, is considering making the anchor a fixture of the park that will sit adjacent to the property.

Russell Lewis, chief historian of the Chicago History Museum, said the anchor’s discovery is interesting, if only to remind Chicagoans that Streeterville was once in Lake Michigan. It’s possible the anchor was Streeter’s, but it could have been from other vessels that traveled the shoreline, he said.

“That’s the one boat we know,” Lewis said. “That’s why people jump to conclusions. But there are the ones we don’t know about,” whose owners didn’t decide to squat on the land where they wrecked, he said.

Still, Lewis said, it’s a wonderful story and the discoverers should be excited about finding a possible remnant of history.

“It’s a mystery,” he said. “What’s discouraging is that you can reach a point where you just can’t tell for sure.”

Dick Bales, an author of a book about the Great Chicago Fire, is in the midst of writing a volume about Streeter. He also works as assistant regional counsel for Chicago Title, the company that Streeter repeatedly sparred with over his land claims.

The more he researches him, the more he’s learning to doubt any legend surrounding Streeter, even his name, Bales said.

Though Streeter’s famous nickname “Cap Streeter” stems from Streeter’s claim that he was a captain in the Civil War, he never made it past the rank of private, Bales said.

And there is some evidence that the tale of the boat wrecked on the sandbar was made up by Streeter to justify his squatting, Bales said.

“Everything about him is a lie, even his name,” he said.

The variations on the Streeter story make him a favorite of Chicago history lovers.

“He’s fascinating,” Mahoney said. “He’s a great Chicago legend.”

By Graydon Megan Special to the Tribune May 8, 2007

An effort to redevelop an Arlington Heights shopping center will continue despite Monday night’s decision to end an agreement with Target Corp. to anchor the project, officials said.

The Village Board voted unanimously to discontinue plans for the Minneapolis company to build a SuperTarget at the northeast corner of Arlington Heights and Golf Roads.

“With the change in the economic climate, it was no longer beneficial to either party, the village or Target,” said Mayor Arlene Mulder. “There might be proposals down the road. We’ll try to find a financial way to make it work.”

The village established a $19 million tax-increment finance district in 2002 for the 35-acre site, which includes the International Plaza shopping center, Arlin-Golf Plaza center, a restaurant, a closed gas station and several other parcels.

“Target has realized, I think, with the passage of time, increased costs and the pending lawsuits, it doesn’t make economic sense for them to proceed under our own redevelopment agreement,” Village Atty. Jack Siegel said before the board meeting Monday night.

Target representative Brie Heath said the decision was based on economics.

“While we continue to be interested in an additional Target store in Arlington Heights, we have mutually agreed with the village to withdraw our project,” Heath said.

The company has a store at 1700 E. Rand Rd.

Siegel said the tax district remains alive and the village may seek another retailer to anchor the development.

Tenants and business owners in the affected properties, many of which were in line to be razed, hope Target’s withdrawal signals a change.

“It doesn’t make any sense not to kill the TIF,” said Laurie Palepu, who owns a hair salon in International Plaza. “It’s really killing our business.”

Ron Popp, an owner of Arlin-Golf Plaza, said the shadow of the TIF hanging over the area has kept his center nearly vacant.

“When they hear about a TIF, they back away,” he said of potential owners and tenants.

Popp has long disputed the designation of his property as blighted.

“Our [center] was completely rehabbed,” he said. “It’s kind of sad that they have to starve you out. I bet I could clear out Woodfield [shopping center] with the same tactics.”

Three lawsuits have been filed against Arlington Heights over the tax district. The first, by Capital Fitness, an International Plaza tenant doing business as XSports Fitness, was decided in favor of the village in January. But the ruling has been appealed, and the other lawsuits, by the owners of Arlin-Golf Plaza and International Plaza, are pending. The plaintiffs have alleged an abuse of village powers.

Arlington Heights officials said the dissolution of the deal involved no payments to or from the village or Target.

“[There was] no consideration,” Siegel said. “It was mutually agreed.”

Village sources said total project costs, including those related to the bond sale and legal expenses, have not been tabulated.

In response to complaints from tax district tenants and owners about a lack of concern for their future, village officials said they have worked with businesses in four other tax districts, helping them remain in a new development or relocate within the village.

Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune

By Andrew Schroedter; Special to the Tribune; May 2, 2007, 8:26 PM CDT

A wrecking ball could soon reduce the Purple Hotel into a colorful pile if a developer follows through with plans to buy the shuttered Lincolnwood landmark.

Chicago-based Sertus Capital Partners LLC has a conditional contract to purchase the 8-acre hotel property at Touhy and Lincoln Avenues, a Sertus principal said.

Michael Glazier declined to comment further, but Lincolnwood officials said Sertus has stated it would demolish the seven-story, 293-room hotel in favor of residential and retail space. The Purple Hotel, 4500 W. Touhy Ave., closed in January, less than six months after Lincolnwood took owner Donald Bae to court over what it alleged were health code violations.

Following up on complaints from people who stayed there, inspectors found mold growing behind wallpaper, beneath floors and in heating ducts, said John Lebegue, the building commissioner. According to court records, mold was detected in 208 of the 225 rooms village inspectors walked through.

“The bottom line is that the windows were failing and water was getting into the rooms,” Lebegue said. “In some rooms, the mold was so thick you could feel your breath. I know my eyes were burning after an hour.”

Bae and his attorneys could not be reached for comment.

Built by Hyatt Corp. in 1960, the Purple Hotel, or Lincolnwood Hyatt House as it was originally named, changed owners over the years, with Radisson and Ramada among its operators.

The hotel’s parking lot was where Allen Dorfman, a reputed mobster and associate of Jimmy Hoffa, was fatally shot by a masked man in 1983.

Pianist Myles Greene, one of the hotel’s first performers, said the halcyon days were in the 1970s when the Purple Hotel’s lounge was a swinging night spot.

“In its heyday, it was the place on the North Side,” said Greene, who grew up in Lincolnwood. “All the entertainers used to stay there. Barry Manilow, Roberta Flack, Perry Como. At that time, it had the greatest pool.”

Today, the empty pool’s deck is cluttered with white plastic lawn chairs blown over by the wind.

A few lights are still on in the lobby, where cleaning supplies sit next to a mound of clear plastic trash bags stuffed with towels, bedding and curtains. In some of the rooms, the furniture has been pushed against walls that have been stripped of wallpaper and paint.

“I’m sorry that someone doesn’t take it over, clean it up and put some new blood into it,” Greene said. “It’s an eyesore now that nobody’s there.”

Other problems found during the September inspection included a faulty sprinkler system, cluttered stairwells, a leaky roof and more mold growing in the sauna and banquet room, according to court records.

The village petitioned Cook County Circuit Court in September to have the hotel closed until the violations were remedied. A judge set a December cleanup deadline for Bae, president of Village Resorts Inc. and owner of the Purple Hotel since 2004. Village officials said Bae chose to close the hotel because a renovation would have been too costly.

“It’s sad,” Village President Jerry Turry said. “It’s a landmark in the village. Its roots go very deep in the lore and history of Lincolnwood.”

“That was our only hotel,” said Diana Lass, executive director of the Lincolnwood Chamber of Commerce. “It has a great deal of history attached to it—both positive and negative.”

By Philip Hersh
Tribune Olympic sports reporter

March 7, 2007, 10:29 PM CST

The committee trying to bring the 2016 Olympics to Chicago gave a bus full of U.S. Olympic Committee officials and two buses full of media an odd sort of venue tour Wednesday.

The USOC group, including an 11-member commission on a two-day visit to evaluate the city’s Olympic bid, did not leave its bus to walk through the Washington Park site of the proposed $366 million Olympic Stadium, marked by multicolored flags of the 202 nations that are part of the International Olympic Committee.

“It was muddy and snowy,” Chicago 2016 Chairman Patrick Ryan said.

Both the USOC and media groups saw the site of the proposed Olympic Village—truck marshaling yards at McCormick Place—from a suite on the 30th floor of the Hyatt Hotel at the convention center. Orange balloons outlined both parts of that site, the $1.1 billion residential complex on the west side of Lake Shore Drive and the recreational and outdoor dining facilities for Olympic athletes on the east side of the Drive.

The flags might as well have all been red, and the balloons risked having the air let out of them because of continuing questions over financing for the two biggest projects for a Chicago Olympic Games.

“Any bid that does not have existing venues will have to demonstrate its ability to complete those venues to the IOC,” USOC Chief Executive Jim Scherr said at a news conference after the venue tour.

Los Angeles, the other finalist to be the U.S. candidate in the global competition for the 2016 host, has 30 of its 36 venues in place, including the Olympic stadium (L.A. Coliseum) and village (UCLA dormitories).

The USOC board will pick the candidate April 14.

“While the final decision will be based on which city has the best chance internationally, either city is capable of hosting the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games,” said USOC Vice President Bob Ctvrtlik, who’s overseeing the bid process.

The lavish praise both Scherr and Ctvrtlik heaped on Chicago’s “bold plan” immediately was tempered by Ctvrtlik’s insistence that the city provide guarantees it would do what it promises.

Mayor Richard M. Daley, who rode the bus for nearly three hours with the USOC group, said the city is looking at “a number of options.” Daley, who long has insisted no public money would be used for the Games, declined several times to reiterate that promise Wednesday.

The compactness of Chicago’s plan and the combination of scenery and buildings that would turn many of the venues into picture postcards clearly impressed the USOC.

The stop at Northerly Island, which would have BMX cycling, beach volleyball and track cycling, showed the USOC group why the site was picked: dramatic views of Soldier Field, the Field Museum and the skyline.

“Just think what the backdrop would be for [TV] broadcasters,” Doug Arnot, Chicago 2016 director of sport and operations, told the USOC. “We have emphasized the merger of parkland and the Olympics, and there is no better place to show that than Northerly Island.”

The final leg of the tour, north on Lake Shore Drive to the whitewater site in Lincoln Park, passed the proposed archery site in Grant Park, the rowing venue that would run from the aquarium to the Chicago River and a triathlon site that would use the lake at North Avenue for swimming and Lake Shore Drive for cycling and running.

All those venue sites are telegenic—a big part of Chicago’s pitch to the USOC.

“These would be Games unparalleled in their experience for the athlete, the Olympic family and the spectators, with the showcase of the waterfront experience,” Scherr said.

A discordant note was sounded as the USOC delegation boarded a bus outside the Hilton to begin the tour. A protester with a bullhorn accused Daley and the Olympics of racism, claimed the Olympics would displace homeless and said that the Games should not come to the city. The USOC commissions polls to determine whether a city wants the Games.

phersh@tribune.com

Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune

By Gary Washburn, Philip Hersh, and Kathy Bergen
Tribune staff reporters

March 7, 2007, 10:28 PM CST

Contrary to his earlier promises, Mayor Richard Daley will have to pledge local funds, at least as collateral, if he wants Chicago to beat Los Angeles to become the U.S. bidder for the 2016 Olympics.

This imperative became clear Wednesday when the U.S. Olympic Committee evaluation team briefed reporters after a two-day visit to size up the city and its bid proposal.

“I’m sure you know there will be either legislation going through or city council meetings at which very important guarantees or commitments, perhaps, might be voted upon,” USOC Vice President Bob Ctvrtlik said.

“We definitely want the government to have some skin in the game,” he said. “We have been assured by the mayor that this is the case with the City of Chicago.”

The USOC team was asked whether it believed a city that saw huge cost overruns in the creation of Millennium Park could be expected to deliver an Olympic stadium and village on budget. “That is certainly one of the items we are going to have an ongoing dialog on,” said USOC Chief Executive Jim Scherr.

The city has until March 31 to spell out its guarantees to the USOC, which will decide April 14 whether Chicago or Los Angeles will move into the international competition, to be decided in 2009.

“We just have to see what their final package entails,” Ctvrtlik said. “So, at this time, they made some representations, and we’ll see exactly what comes concretely presented to us by March 31.”

Asked about Ctvrtlik’s remarks, Daley told reporters, “We are presently working on the guarantee, both with public and private” entities.

“We’re looking at that—the concern the USOC has, rightfully so,” the mayor said. “We will be coming up with a plan very shortly.”

But Daley repeatedly refused to provide any details during a press conference by Chicago’s bid team, which followed the USOC briefing. And he dodged the question of whether he was amending his promise not to use any local, public funds.

When asked about the promise, Daley said, “We are presently looking at a number of options in regards to the commitment we’ll make.”

Daley has amassed two big pots of money over the past two years, though uses for the cash have been earmarked for purposes other than the Olympics.

In 2005, the city leased the Chicago Skyway to private operators for $1.83 billion. Of the total, $500 million was set aside for a long-term reserve that generates about $25 million a year in investment income. A $325 million annuity also was created to fund various city programs over the following eight years.

Last fall, Daley announced a deal to lease four downtown parking garages—one owned by the city, three by the Chicago Park District—for $563 million. More than half of the money was used to pay outstanding debt associated with the garages, but $122 million was reserved for a variety of park system improvements.

Daley often has said that the city expects the private sector, Olympic-generated revenue and the federal government to cover the costs of the games and has vowed that local taxpayers would not be at risk. Wednesday’s change of tone came eight days after Daley was re-elected.

Later in the day, the Chicago 2016 bid committee issued a statement on guarantees, attempting to clarify what will be needed.

The private developer selected to build the $1.1 billion Olympic Village south of McCormick Place would be required to obtain its own private-market guarantees, the committee said.

And the contractor on the $366 million temporary stadium in Washington Park would have to commit to delivering it at a pre-established cost and set up its own construction guarantees.

“As for everything else, the International Olympic Committee, and thus the USOC, require a guarantee against any operating budget shortfall from every bid city,” Patrick Sandusky, a Chicago 2016 spokesman, said in a statement. “This is what the city and the committee are working to develop.”

Given the experience of previous U.S. host cities, it is likely Chicago will find a lender or consortium of lenders to extend a line of credit to cover costs that occur before Olympic-generated revenue starts to pour in.

But such a financing plan will need to be backed up by government.

The IOC “wants financial guarantees and assurances from a government that bills will be paid,” said A.D. Frazier, who was chief operating officer of the 1996 Atlanta Games.

“This is something New York struggled with on its bid for 2012,” said Kevin Walmsley, an Olympic historian with the International Centre for Olympic Studies at the University of Western Ontario. “This is hard and fast with the IOC.”

If the Games generate enough revenue, from television rights, ticket sales, sponsorships and the like, the city could pay off a line of credit without ever having to tap taxpayers.

And that is what the Chicago 2016 Committee projects will happen.

“The fact is, the recent Games in the U.S. have returned surpluses,” Sandusky said in the statement. “Looking at the current trend in Olympic revenue generation, we anticipate a Games in Chicago will return a significant surplus. Therefore, the likelihood of having to tap this guarantee is minimal.”

The IOC’s insistence on an ironclad guarantee stems from a mix-up surrounding the Atlanta bid, Frazier said.

A state authority set up to have financial oversight of the Games was given bonding power but no ability to levy funds to pay off bonds, he said.

“When the IOC realized there was effectively no government backing for Atlanta, they were furious,” he said.

Speaking to the issue of cost overruns at Millennium Park, which the USOC acknowledged was something of a concern, Daley said, “The scope changed 100 percent, and it went from a small green space to what we have—an internationally acclaimed park, one of the best in the world.”

Originally estimated to cost $150 million when plans were unveiled in 1998, the price tag ballooned to about $490 million by the time it opened in 2005.

Private donors covered roughly $220 million of the total, the city the remainder.

The Chicago 2016 Committee until Wednesday had been putting off providing details on guarantees, noting the city was in a competitive situation and saying the information would be shared at some later date. But at the dual press briefings, the issue bubbled over.

“The USOC asking for a guarantee was not a surprise for us, or for any other Olympic bid city,” said Sandusky. “It has always asked for this kind of guarantee. … From the beginning, we knew about it and worked on it.”

kbergen@tribune.com

gwashburn@tribune.com

phersh@tribune.com

City says Olympic experience offers edge over Chicago

By Philip Hersh, Tribune Olympics reporter
Published March 1, 2007, 11:29 PM CST

LOS ANGELES — The committee trying to bring the 2016 Olympic Games to Los Angeles gave the U.S. Olympic Committee commission evaluating their chances a virtual tour of the proposed Olympic Village on the UCLA campus Thursday.

Sophisticated urban simulation software developed by UCLA professor Bill Jepson made the tour possible and reflected one of Los Angeles’ major talking points for its bid: That the creative community centered in Hollywood will be available for the first time to promote the Olympics.

But the virtual part wasn’t necessary because the USOC visitors later walked through the real buildings that would house about 75 percent of the 16,000 athletes and officials on the campus if the Games were in Los Angeles for a third time. UCLA is building new housing that would accommodate the rest.

While Chicago’s 2016 Olympic bid extols the attractiveness of a $1.1 billion development on Lake Shore Drive that would make its debut as an Olympic Village and provide the comforts of apartment-style living, that housing exists only on drawing boards.

And although Chicago’s village would be much closer to most of the sports venues than the UCLA dorms are to the Los Angeles venues, the USOC will leave Southern California with the comfort of having seen actual bricks and mortar as it decides April 14 which city would be the better candidate for the 2016 bid.

“This city is ready and willing to host these Olympics,” Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said in a public greeting to the 18-member USOC group, decked out in black jackets with “United States Olympic Committee 2016 evaluation commission” embroidered on the chest.

The same group will be in Chicago on Monday through Wednesday. The USOC will not comment about the L.A. evaluation until Friday, after it has been feted at the Getty Museum on Thursday night.

Banners reading “LA 2016″ hung along the stretch of Sunset Boulevard adjacent to the UCLA campus. A Disney-produced film, “Why LA?,” had its premiere for USOC and media audiences. Frequent expressions of Los Angeles as the chosen place, hubris be darned, hung in the sunny atmosphere of a perfect late-winter day.

“We have the beaches, the palm trees, the glitz and the glamor,” Villaraigosa said as he introduced the 31/2-minute film emphasizing all those things, including Los Angeles being home to more Olympians than any other city in the world.

“This is where stars are born and where dreams are made. No city inspires dreams quite like the city of Los Angeles,” he said.

Reality sometimes is less inspiring.

Nearly one-fifth of the residents in a UCLA Olympic Village would have to use a common shower and bathroom down the hall. Many others would have one bathroom and shower for five or six people.

Chicago hopes its apartment-style village will look better by comparison, even if it is only on paper.

“When we said ‘college-type room’ 20 years ago or 30 years ago, we had rooms and toilets and a common shower at the end of a hall. Of course, that we don’t want,” Gilbert Felli, the International Olympic Committee’s executive director for the Olympic Games, said in a Tribune interview.

“If you have as we do now on [many] campuses, rooms where you have your own shower, sometimes even a little kitchen, everybody will say it is fantastic.”

The UCLA village, undergraduate housing on the northwest side of campus, has the feel of a community with eight dining halls and recreation facilities such as pools and tennis courts. It is next to the track and sports medicine centers.

The Chicago village would have similar facilities—plus an exclusive lakefront beach—because the IOC requires them, according to Chicago 2016 spokesman Mike Kontos.

Because only one Olympic venue is planned at UCLA—Pauley Pavilion, for volleyball preliminaries—travel times to other venues are an issue in a city where overtaxed freeways are constantly congested.

Olympic gold medal swimmer Janet Evans needed 2½ hours Thursday to cover the 66 miles from her home in Orange County to UCLA, where she introduced the civic and campus leaders who presented the L.A. bid to the USOC commission. It took a reporter 45 minutes from her home in Long Beach, where 16 sports would be played.

A day before the USOC tours the venues, Villaraigosa played down travel concerns, citing new rail service and traffic management as solutions.

“In 1984 (the last L.A. Olympics), people talked about doomsday and Armageddon, yet traffic flowed because leadership decisions were made,” he said.

phersh@tribune.com

Starting this week, L.A. and Chicago pull out all the stops to sell themselves

By Michael Martinez, Tribune national correspondent
Published March 1, 2007

LOS ANGELES — The battle between Chicago and Los Angeles for the 2016 Olympics is now fully raging as the U.S. Olympic Committee begins a final inspection visit to the City of Angels this week–and then tours the Windy City next week.

Los Angeles will make its last pitch to an evaluation team on Thursday and Friday, and it must convince the committee that after hosting the Olympics in 1932 and 1984, it should represent the United States for a third time, while Chicago is eager and willing for a first chance.

For example, Los Angeles will promote its experience and existing facilities, but it will also have to address its shortcomings in traffic, sprawl, an aging Coliseum as the Olympic marquee, and a potential been-there-done-that fatigue at the international level, analysts said.

The committee will choose between the two on April 14, with the winner advancing as the U.S. candidate to the international competition for the 2016 Summer Games.

“Chicago is extremely formidable, but L.A. is extremely strong,” said David Carter, executive director of the University of Southern California’s Sports Business Institute. “But Chicago, with its sports will and political will, is a ready-for-prime-time challenger.”

Mark Dolley, the spokesman for San Francisco’s Olympic bid until that city dropped out last year, said Los Angeles needs “to demonstrate how they could make a third Olympic Games a little bit different and a little special, bearing in mind that it’s been only 23 years since the last one.”

David Simon, president of the Southern California Committee for the Olympic Games, responded: “Some say that the fact we’ve had the Olympics twice is our challenge. We happen to think that is one of our chief strengths.”

Analysts also noted that another Los Angeles Olympics would have to compete with the city’s long slate of entertainment events.

In sizing up the final two cities, analysts spoke of Chicago’s civic engagement, promoted in part by its centralized politics and its powerful mayor, Richard Daley, who has also made more high-profile visits to Olympic sites overseas than Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

In proposing an all-important stadium for opening and closing ceremonies, both cities have advanced temporary structures or improvements. Los Angeles would spend $112 million on temporary additions, largely endorsed by preservationists, to the historic Coliseum, which opened in 1923. Chicago has proposed a $366 million facility in the South Side’s Washington Park, which would later be converted into a 5,000-seat amphitheater.

In the crucial visits, a 12-member USOC evaluation commission, joined by five support staff members, will analyze each city’s bid in a process that’s part kicking the tires on the proposals and part ensuring either city is qualified to be the U.S. nominee, analysts said.

Both cities will be largely confined to addressing certain themes such as transportation, security, media operations and a financial plan.

Ultimately, the USOC officials will be evaluating which city can win the international race for the 2016 Summer Games, competing against world capitals such as Rome, Tokyo, Madrid and New Delhi, analysts said.

“We’re looking for the city that has the best chance to be competitive in what we know will be a very challenging international race,” said Darryl Seibel, spokesman for the U.S. Olympic Committee.

The Olympic evaluation team is scheduled to spend Thursday hearing from Southern California officials and viewing the debut of a short film by Disney, “Why L.A.?”

The evaluators will tour the UCLA campus, the proposed site for the Olympic village and some event venues. On Friday, they will visit the Home Depot Center in Carson, venues in Long Beach and then the Staples Center downtown.

“It’s part dog-and-pony show too,” said Toronto sports consultant Rob Livingstone, who assisted Toronto’s bid for the 2008 Games that ultimately went to Beijing. “In a way that’s kind of important. If they can’t put on a good show on the domestic level, they can’t do it on an international level.”

Right now, Los Angeles seems to be ahead of Chicago in the competition, according to two Chicago-based observers.

“My handicapping of it is very close to even. L.A. is still in the lead but that lead has shrunk significantly over the last few months,” said Marc Ganis, president of Sportscorp Ltd., a consulting firm with no ties to the Olympics.

He noted that the Olympic community eyes Chicago with “curiosity” and “intrigue.”

Ganis favors Chicago for the 2016 Games, but not Allen Sanderson, a University of Chicago economist who was born in Southern California and has lived in Chicago for 22 years.

“I hope L.A. gets it. These things tend to be very expensive parties and Los Angeles would be the least expensive drain,” Sanderson said. “Chicago will be very expensive if they get it.”

Those costs will be negotiated by the winning city with the USOC.

“Just know that the evaluation–I can tell you because I know these guys pretty well–is `What’s in it for the U.S. Olympic Committee?’ and `What are the financial splits?’” said A.D. Frazier, chief operating officer for the 1996 Atlanta Games. “It will be a negotiation between Chicago and Los Angeles as to who’s more willing to meet my demands. Absolutely. You can take that to the bank.”

———-

mjmartinez@tribune.com

Bob Verdi; Published February 25, 2007

By Kathy Bergen, Tribune staff reporter
Published February 23, 2007

In Chicago’s battle against Los Angeles to become the U.S. bidder for the 2016 Olympic Games, the volleys intensified Thursday, less than a week before evaluation teams begin city visits.

On the West Coast, Los Angeles unveiled a $112 million temporary face-lift to its historic Memorial Coliseum, adding 204 luxury suites and restoring the track surrounding the main field so the facility could host track and field as well as opening and closing ceremonies.

In the Midwest, Chicago’s bid leader, Patrick Ryan, took some light-hearted jabs at the rival city. Speaking to the Union League Club, Ryan was uncharacteristically scrappy, saying Chicago’s bid will outshine Los Angeles in terms of creating an urban legacy, having a single Olympic Village, as opposed to clusters of dorms, and having games that are concentrated geographically, making life easier for athletes.

Meanwhile, Mayor Richard Daley hinted at just how badly the city wants these Summer Games in remarks to hospitality industry leaders.

“In the last three days I’ve see more developers look at more land, more development, than at anyplace else in America … because they realize the Olympics can portray Chicago differently globally,” Daley told about 200 event planners attending a Chicago Convention and Tourism Bureau sales presentation at the Peninsula Chicago.

He cited 1992 Olympic host city Barcelona, a smaller city with no Fortune 500 companies, as an example.

“They market Barcelona as … one of the finest global cities in the world to do business, and everything else, there’s one reason: They had the Olympics,” Daley said. “It transformed the city and continues to transform the city.”

Los Angeles, a two-time Olympic host city, raised the competitive bar Tuesday by revealing its plan to build a temporary addition to its Memorial Coliseum. The design would add not only luxury suites, but also sun shading, an entire suite level with 2,400 seats and a new structure and skin around the perimeter adorned with Olympic images.

“The Coliseum has been the site of incredible events for more than 80 years, but it never shines brighter than during the Olympic Games,” Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said in a statement. “In 2016, the newly designed Coliseum will glow spectacularly.”

The construction, because of its temporary nature, would be paid for with Olympic revenue, said David Simon, president of the Southern California Committee for the Olympic Games.

Chicago, too, plans to use Olympic revenue to pay the lion’s share of its $366 million temporary stadium in Washington Park on the South Side.

The International Olympic Committee allows Olympic revenue to be used for operating games, and this can include the construction of temporary facilities or the adaptation of existing venues.

Los Angeles’ plan appears to be a smart one, said Marc Ganis, president of Sportscorp Ltd., a Chicago-based consultancy.

“You can get $300,000 to $400,000 for each luxury suite, so you’re almost paying for the renovation with that,” he said.

“I don’t know if it’s the tipping point that will get them the Olympics, but it’s helpful,” he said.

The Chicago 2016 Committee said the Coliseum update was expected.

“This isn’t news to us,” spokesman Patrick Sandusky said. “It doesn’t impact our plans. We continue to focus on the U.S. Olympic Committee visit in two weeks.”

A USOC evaluation team will visit Los Angeles next week and Chicago the week after. The organization will select a U.S. bid city April 14, and the worldwide competition will come in October 2009.

Now that the domestic rivals are in the home stretch, rhetoric is heating up.

In his remarks Thursday morning, Ryan compared Chicago’s bid to Los Angeles’ proposal, something he’d shied away from until now.

Chicago’s games are compact, centered in the heart of the city, with rowing, for instance, in Monroe Harbor, he noted.

“For rowing in Los Angeles, you’ve got to go from L.A. all the way down to Long Beach,” he said, with comic inflection.

And Chicago’s Olympic Village would be one central development, just south of McCormick Place, he noted. The $1.1 billion facility would be financed by a private developer and sold as housing after the games

In Los Angeles, “they are going to be in clusters of dormitories,” he said. “And in a day of security, we can secure that perimeter much more effectively with one village.”

Simon, of the Los Angeles team, declined to compare his city’s bid to Chicago’s plans, saying the USOC asked the cities not to compare themselves to each other.

But speaking of the L.A. bid, he said, the Olympic Village will be a compact series of buildings at the University of California at Los Angeles “that can be easily fenced and secured. They are not spread out.”

When asked what led him to make prickly remarks about Los Angeles, Ryan said he was irritated by earlier comments by Los Angeles bid officials about Chicago’s weather. One official was reported to wisecrack about 30 m.p.h. winds off the lake.

“L.A. doesn’t have a lot to talk about other than our weather,” Ryan said in a press briefing after the talk, and he noted the Olympics will be summer games.

Asked about the weather issue, Simon offered his own bit of humor: “I refuse to be drawn into a comparison of our weather to Chicago’s, and you can quote me on that.”

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kbergen@tribune.com

By Dan Gibbard, Tribune staff reporter
February 16, 2007

As water officials approved Cook County’s first comprehensive stormwater management plan Thursday, some environmentalists said it focused too heavily on flooding and not enough on protecting wetlands and promoting ecologically sensitive buildings.

“It’s a very good first step … but important gaps remain,” said Richard Acker, an attorney for the Environmental Law and Policy Center.

The plan mentions water quality and wetlands, but, “The further you get into [it], the more the focus is really just on flooding,” he said.

Officials of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago, which created the plan, agreed that flood control is the main focus but said other issues will be handled in due time.

“We’re prioritizing that as being a major need at the present, but [the plan] is also going to improve wetlands protection, erosion control, water quality,” said Terrence O’Brien, president of the board of commissioners, which voted 9-0 for the plan. “People would like to see it all happen at once, but it can’t.”

In November 2004 the General Assembly gave the water district authority over management of stormwater for all of suburban Cook County. Previously, multiple agencies had jurisdiction, and very little was accomplished, O’Brien said.

Flooding is a countywide problem, he said.

“Tinley-Orland, Des Plaines, Dolton–it’s all been neglected. There’s been nothing done to the infrastructure with all the development,” O’Brien said. “We’ve taken away the natural absorption and not done anything to handle the runoff.”

Part of the problem is that many of the newer areas are not connected to the water district’s Deep Tunnel system, which handles sewer overflow from 53 older communities, including Chicago, that have combined sewerage, O’Brien said.

The new plan does not specify how to solve flooding problems because no one knows exactly what’s causing them, O’Brien said.

Instead, it establishes planning councils for six area watersheds: the North Branch of the Chicago River, the Lower Des Plaines tributaries, the Calumet-Sag Channel, the Little Calumet River, Poplar Creek and Upper Salt Creek. The councils, mostly made up of municipal and county officials, are supposed to figure out what causes problems and then map ways to mitigate them.

That’s one reason environmentalists’ suggestions for green building techniques aren’t specifically incorporated as recommended solutions in the plan, O’Brien said.

“Why throw money at something if you don’t know what’s causing it?” he said.

But Steve Wise, manager of natural resources programs for the Center for Neighborhood Technology in Chicago, said many cities have already proved that some techniques work, including rain gardens that absorb rainwater and permeable pavements that allow it to seep through to the ground.

“We think that we can still start using those effective green infrastructure techniques while still doing investigations” of how well they work locally, Wise said.

Environmentalists also were concerned that the plan sets methods for valuing, for example, the damage flooding does to property but says other benefits, such as better water quality and wetlands protection, can’t be quantified.

“We’re afraid that’s going to put those kinds of projects far beyond flood-control projects in terms of where the dollars are going to be spent,” Acker said.

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dgibbard@tribune.com

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