Landmark Status Could Have Cubs Looking for New Home

The Commission on Chicago Landmarks Wednesday again denied the team‚s request for a 60-day continuance to allow its recently hired attorneys from Piper Rudnick to prepare for the hearing. However, attorney Theodore Novak appeared up to the task, even though the commission is expected to recommend landmark designation for Wrigley Field when it meets April 3.

"This ordinance is vague, it's overbroad, it's ambiguous," Novak claims. "It poses grave risk to the continued viability to this business at this location."

Adds Cubs president and CEO Andy MacPhail, "Ballparks that don't respond to their fans' needs, particularly 89-year-old ballparks, become endangered."

Had the ballpark been designated a landmark in the mid-1980s, the ballpark's lights, ground-level Stadium Club restaurant, mezzanine suites, new press box and even juniper plants above the center-field wall would have been subject to the department of planning and development's landmark division's permit review process, MacPhail notes. Meanwhile, he points to the team's plans to add about 2,000 bleacher seats, remain about two years off.

"We're no further along today than we were when we first started," MacPhail says. "How can I believe we'll possess the needed flexibility?"

Department of Planning and Development commissioner Alicia Berg counters that more than 90% of the permits involving landmarked properties are approved within two days. "I really think it's much ado about nothing," she says. "I do believe they're overstating the level of review that'‚s sought here."

Berg also says the city's goal is to keep the ballpark viable, rather than make Major League Baseball there functionally obsolete.

While the team's quest for additional bleacher seats was a catalyst for the city's move, issues raised during neighborhood meetings debating the proposal will not be addressed by bestowing landmark status on the ballpark, Novak says. "It doesn't help provide parking, it doesn't alleviate traffic congestion, it doesn't clean up the area, it doesn't address security concerns," he says.