The Chicago Tribune this weekend published this article regarding the construction at the Broadway Armory to add an indoor running track. From the article:
"The Broadway Armory Park in the Edgewater neighborhood is about to see its summer schedule upended so an elevated running track can be built above the gymnasium for Loyola University's track team.
The school is paying for about half of the estimated $1.7 million track and the Park District the other half. In return for $850,000 over five years, Loyola's runners will be allowed exclusive use of the new track for 21/2 hours per day on weekdays during the school year.
A community group and new Ald. Harry Osterman, 48th, said people in the area are excited they will get to use the 200-meter Olympic-style indoor track that likely wouldn't get built unless Loyola pitched in."
What do you think? Are you glad to see Loyola chip in funding for the construction in exchange for exlcusing use of the track by the Loyola track team? Or do you think the Park District is unessesarily rushing to build a track just because Loyola wants one?
12 comments:
Absolutely, this is a no brainer.
It's an improvement, so it's a good thing. The building's peak season is winter, anyway; people are outside in summer, so summer is the best time to close the place and do any renovations.
It's a definite plus. There is also a clear distinction between the partnership between Loyola and the Park District on this project vs. the Latin School's Lincoln Park soccer field.
And it is the fact that Loyola is not gobbling up parkland acreage; it is adding usable floor-space to an existing building.
Sometimes I agree with FOTP, but this time I really think that Erma Tranter needs to keep her trap shut.
This is a great idea. Giving up the track for 2.5 hours a day is not a big deal; especially if Loyola is willing to help a large portion of the financial burden.
Further integrating Loyola and it's resources into the community is a major positive. An institution like Loyola should be the anchor to this neighborhood.
If I read that right, Loyola is paying 50% of the cost of adding the track and reserving just 10% of the time? Even if it represents 20% or 30% of the available time, it still sounds like a good deal to me.
Contributing 50% of the costs of adding this feature is the LEAST Loyola U can do in return for the tax-funded gifts it has received from the city, and from the Edgewater and Rogers Park communities.
Before you fall down on your knees in gratitude to Loyola for this "gift", please keep in mind that Loyola is the lead developer and chief beneficiary of the Loyola/Devon TIF district, which stretches from Granville, along Devon, and all the way up Sheridan to Farwell. This $44 Million TIF was founded to renovate Loyola's historic Mundelein College as well as 3 other buildings on Loyola's campus, and to redevelop the scabid- looking anti-streetscape around Broadway& Sheridan.
So far, Loyola has wasted no time in doing the improvements to its campus, and the TIF made the Morgan at Loyola Station possible. That building is surely is a major enhancement, even if the apartments are priced above the local market. However, the area around the intersection of Broadway& Devon is still a wilderness of fast-food joints, storage facilities, and curb-cuts, and has about as much charm as you would expect such an area to have. Moreover, much of the TIF money has been wasted on projects such as 6610 N Sheridan Rd building, which was a rather shabby, but not horrible, low-rent building, but now, after its ownership received $2.5M in TIF funding to completely redo the facade and rehabilitat the building, sits empty and boarded up, and a blight on the neighborhood.
I believe that all in all, Loyola has gotten a very handsome return on money "given" to the neighborhood, and that money donated for the track is a pittance relative to the money area property tax payers have paid to improve the Loyola campus.
I’d much rather have the track than ecologically questionable, four mile landfill that the Friends of the Parks wants to build.
So would I, mpc.
I like the track, and I really think that Loyola ought to volunteer to pick up the whole tab, given how much money the property owners of Edgewater and Rogers Park have poured into Loyola's coffers.
Loyola also ought to make their library and other facilities available to the taxpayers of Edgewater and RP, in return for the tens of millions of dollars we are paying them through the TIF.... which looks like it is extremely unlikely ever to return as much to the tax base as it is taking in tax dollars.
Since you mention the 4-mile infill, it's time to revive the fight against it. Right now there is no money for it and there isn't likely to be for sometime, but the project is by no means dead, and it has the support of Loyola U's chancellor as well as the North Shore suburban communities, whose Mercedes and Land Rovers jam Sheridan Road at rush hour.
Lane Tech High School entered into an agreement with DePaul University similar to the proposed agreement between Loyola and the Broadway Armory. DePaul paid for the renovation of the Lane/CPS track in return for a 20-year exclusive use of the track between 10-2 daily. As a result over 4,000students cannot use the track or the adjacent freshman/sophomore fields during the school day because of NCAA rules about college athletes being in close proximity to high school students. There are no other sites other than the school lawn to replace the freshman/sophomore fields. It doesn't seem right to me that publicly funded schools or park district facilities should rely on funding from private sources to enhance their facilities and then restrict public use of the facility for the benefit of so few.
What are the hours I wonder where it has to be restricted for only Loyola Students.
Carla, it is NOT right for the schools to have to rely on funding directly from private sources while our tax money is diverted to many of these private sources via about 160 TIF districts that have nearly bankrupted this city and have driven property taxes to insane levels, especially on modest-priced commercial and residential properties.
This co-mingling of private and public monies muddies the waters, creating confusion about whom is paying for what, to the detriment of the taxpayers and Chicago's battered finances. Citizens are gulled into thinking that these private schools are actually "giving" when what they give is a fraction of what they are taking in taxpayer-funded subsidies of one kind or the other.
Chicago would have no problem adequately funding its schools, parks, and infrastructure if we could unravel our quilt of TIF districts, which are nothing but conveyances that funnel hundreds of millions of dollars in property taxes to the back pockets of crony developers and private entities that sometimes do not ever pay taxes themselves (like Loyola U)who then graciously kick back a small percentage of it as a "gift" to the community. We would not need their "contributions".
Public money should be reserved for public purposes, and the private and public realms should be separate and exclusive. That way, it would be very clear who pays for what, and the city would be in much better financial condition, with no need to seek contributions over and above fair, reasonable taxes for essential public needs and desirable public amenities.
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