And the owner is...?

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I was going to guess Tony Rezko or Obama but I’m a few years off.

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Yes, as an accomplishment to show what he has done to improve Illinois and to show his credibility.

I think Rezko did own it at one time.

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General Jim wears Fort Bragg down... to get it!

He did, that was the joke.

Current owner seems a very vanilla NPC real estate developer.

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Maybe they would seem some initially and for a period of time, but the stadium/area would have to be incredible for tourism to continue beyond the initial curiosity.

It's amazing how these hosts are now financial/stadium experts now though.

Off topic, but frankly more interesting than anything on WSCR, but always find the economic impact numbers thrown around i/c/w a stadium or an event to be a bit odd.

You do get the initial impact of construction jobs, but that would seem to be offset by any taxpayer costs involved in the project.

A few years back a local politician was throwing a huge number around i/c/w a soccer tournament, when I pointed out that his hotel room numbers were rather implausible because the number he cited would only be met if every hotel room in the area was booked for $2,000 a night, he quickly deleted the post.

Casinos seem to be the only thing that continuously generate revenue, thought the sports book in the stadium concept was the sticking point with the city of Chicago initially.

It has been pretty much proven that new stadia add very little or nothing to the economy.

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"I honestly don't see a good bet on the board here."

Correct. They don't create economic activity, they just move it around. It's such a scam, but it still finds easy marks.

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Probably depends on how micro you want to get.

In the example of AH, is there a real argument that a suburb would get no economic benefit from a gigantic taxpayer without all of the obligations that go along with new residents?

For the Sox, they’d seemingly gut a neighborhood to move a few miles north. Net-net, seems pretty bad.

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Most of the year, it's going to sit there not doing anything, and the strip mall around it would probably mean mutually assured destruction for both actual downtown Arlington Heights and Nathan Vasher's Pizza & Wings.

I think the blueprint here is Patriot Place, also a lifestyle center built around a stadium that replaced a racetrack 25 miles from the city center, and I'm not sure that Patriot Place has been an unqualified success.

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Also seems the infrastructure costs are somewhat daunting and fall totally on the taxpayer, roads, curbs, sidewalks, gutters all are expensive and the teams just expect that to be part of the package.

AH does have train access which is a big reason it would work for those of us west of the city, but they would have to upgrade the number of trains as they were fairly full for Cubs or Arlington days, would expect there to be at least 2-3 times the volume for Bears games.

Does seem there will be gambling money involved somehow as they need to insure there are proper venues for people to throw away a few bucks on Justin Fields passing overs.

Aren't you from Rockford? What good does the Northwest Line do you? You'd have to drive all the way to Harvard; you'd be better off getting on 90 at that point.

The Ogilvie lines are still controlled by the Union Pacific, which would limit Metra's ability to schedule more Sunday trains. The North Central Line is controlled by the Wisconsin Central and can't run weekend trains at all.

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Agreed, Metra is incredibly inconvenient unless you live along the line. For instance, I lived closest to Big Timber but had to drive to Barrington for Cubs games. You’re only other option is to go all the way downtown just to take the L back out.

AH is terrible from a transportation perspective. Sure, it is close to 290/53, but those exits cannot handle the surge, and the I-90 ramps onto 290 are horribly congested.

Stadiums should be built in downtown areas or as close as possible to such for transportation and convenience for the fan bases.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

It really is. The biggest one for Bears games, I think, is that Lake Avenue is a pretty major arterial in the North Shore burbs but becomes two-lane Euclid downtown and grinds all that traffic from the east to a halt. Combine that with traffic from southern DuPage and you have a real boondoggle.

Old-line Chicago suburbs just weren't designed for heavy car traffic. It's part of the charm. Arlington Heights is not Muskego or New Berlin, thankfully.

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Why are they so angry today? They seem surprised Reinsdorf asked for money. They also seem surprised they cannot get callers to agree with Reinsdorf so they yell louder?

And just because I was lazy yesterday Dan wouldn't do 23 and Me dna test because he claims there are groups using that data to ID and locate all the Ashkenazi.

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Elections have consequences.

How's their water supply ?

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Proud member of the white guy grievance committee

It aint the six minutes. Its what happens in those six minutes.

WB Lake/Euclid traffic will probably figure out bailing at Rand (or sooner) and heading up to either Palatine Road or one of the side streets (Camp McDonald / Oakton) may be the better option. Otherwise just take Lake/Cook or Palatine road to 53. Guessing that might work OK on Sundays. However for Monday or Thursday games, YIKES no good options.

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"I honestly don't see a good bet on the board here."

They’ll wheel traffic like they do in college towns. Probably make roads one way during game days on certain hours. It’ll be great unless you live there.

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WELP

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If! this project goes through, 53 will be upgraded, it basically become an 290 extended. This isn't rocket science.

They've been trying to expand 53 for years and it's never happened.

FUN FACT: the expressway north of Dundee Road is unsigned; 53 breaks off there and co-signs Dundee and Rand before signing Hicks. Anyway, not sure how much you can widen the expressway given the frontages and the homes along them. Are we just gonna eminent-domain straight through Palatine to accommodate traffic for DUH BEARSE to lose 9 games a year?

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They will build exit ramps from the expressway to the parking lot, gameday traffic won't even see the sideroads.

they're still not giving up on attempting to eminent-domain everything along 143rd street by me to widen it to 5 lanes from 2, for absolutely no real reason. I'm sure for the Bears they'd plow down everything in a 5 miles radius without the blink of an eye.

Isn't 90 like 5 miles away?

They are going to build them off 14

Now I am become death, destroyer of Hersey High School.

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Ha! Hersey High School, home of the non-connecting second floor hallways. I remember Parent-Teacher conferences being a track meet, where you had to run from a second floor classroom, down a hallway, down a flight of stairs, back another hallway, up a flight of stairs, and down yet another hallway. All within 5 minutes and all to get to a classroom that was 40 feet from the first, but blocked by a wall because they didn't think it necessary to have the hallway traverse the entire length of the second floor

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"I honestly don't see a good bet on the board here."

Home of Dave Corzine?

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Hawaii (fuck) You

Dan Bernstein touting economic professor Robert Reich today and playing videos of him.

The Score literally sounding like MSNBC