Cubs decry expansion denial Neighbors' fears factor into city's rejection of plans

By Will Potter and Bill Jauss, Tribune staff reporters. Tribune staff reporter Ofelia Casillas contributed to this report

Published August 4, 2002

Cubs president Andy MacPhail expressed disappointment Saturday that Mayor Richard Daley and the city have sided with community groups and rejected the club's plans to add 1,980 seats to Wrigley Field and to increase the number of night games from 18 to 30 per season.

MacPhail, who called the Cubs' requests "modest in scope" and an attempted compromise, said the club would continue negotiating with the city.

Daley said Saturday that the city rejected the club's proposal because of community concerns. The bleacher expansion proposed by the team would require sidewalk support columns bordering the ballpark.

Community groups have said such columns would interfere with pedestrian traffic, pose safety hazards and alter the facade of a historic ballpark.

The city's proposal, offered to Cubs officials Friday, would permit cantilevered bleachers that would add about half as many seats.

The city's proposal also would grant the ballpark landmark status, freeze the number of night games at 18 "for the foreseeable future" and require the team to pay "fair market rent" for city-owned land adjacent to the ballpark that the team has been using, according to a city official who asked not to be named.

MacPhail said the team has been sensitive to community concerns and trimmed its previous request for 2,600 additional seats to 2,100 and then to 1,980. He said building owners on Waveland and Sheffield Avenues had undue clout in pressuring the city to reject the club's proposal.

The building owners have erected rooftop bleachers and sell seats to customers to view Cubs games.

"We never quite seem to get the city to understand why we try to separate what we perceive to be legitimate community concerns from the vested economic concerns of rooftop bar owners," MacPhail said.

Jim Murphy, owner of Murphy's Bleachers, 3655 N. Sheffield Ave., and president of East Lake View Neighbors, said the city's decision was most influenced by a voter referendum item, not pressure from bar owners.

The March 19 non-binding referendum item, which proposed that the Cubs resolve neighborhood concerns before expanding the bleachers, was supported by 80 percent of voters, he said.

Murphy said team officials have not addressed the increased traffic, parking problems and unruly behavior that the expansion and night games would bring.

"We're not saying no to the Cubs, we're saying address these issues first," he said.

MacPhail said the Cubs have assured neighborhood groups that security and cleanup workers would be increased if the club adds night games.

"We're getting tattooed for whatever project we do here, and we do it in a way that is sensitive to the community," said MacPhail.

He also complained that the city's treatment of Chicago's sports teams appears to be uneven.

"Look at recent activity in city spending," he said. "The city is spending more than $400 million to build a new Bears stadium and is pumping $20 million more into Comiskey Park. We can't get our modest, already-scaled-back project approved."

Responding to questions from reporters, Daley said that his decision on the Cubs proposal was not influenced by the Tribune's critical news coverage of his administration.

The Cubs are owned by Tribune Co., which also owns the Chicago Tribune.

"It's your job to criticize me; it's your job to bring negative news, not good news," Daley said at a news conference unveiling a program for at-risk youth. "You want people to fight with each other, you want to bring out the worst of society."

The city's plan requires that the Cubs initiate several actions to minimize the impact of games on the neighborhood. They include starting Friday afternoon games an hour earlier and e-mailing residents to communicate about problems.

Mark McGuire, vice president of business operations for the Cubs, had offered to take such steps if the city approved the team's original expansion plan.

"We want the ballpark to remain economically viable, but this ballpark is in the middle of a neighborhood," said Planning Commissioner Alicia Berg. "We are trying to balance those two considerations."

Longtime Wrigleyville homeowners Warren Knowles, 47, and his wife, Christine, 50, said they are against changes to the stadium.

Christine Knowles has lived in their home in the 3500 block of North Sheffield, just south of the stadium, all her life.

"The crowds of rowdy fans puke on my steps and [urinate] on the gangway and in the lot next door," Warren Knowles said. "People think because it's dark they can't be seen. At night, it's just a rowdier crowd."

But Neer Patel, 25, who rents just north of the ballpark, said he doesn't understand why anybody would mind more night games or the noise they bring.

"It's like living next to O'Hare and complaining about the noise of the planes," he said.

Fans at Saturday's game had mixed reactions to the idea of more night games.

"I would prefer to see more night games. It is easier for the team and better for the fans," said Roy Smith, 49, who lives in Edwardsville, Ill. "We'd get more people at the games. Now they have to play hooky to come see the games."

Some fans and neighbors expressed anger at the rooftop bars that have a free view of the games, and said the owners should not have a say.

"People who live across from the Coca-Cola plant shouldn't get free Coca-Cola," said Phil McMahon, 37, a cookware salesman who had just watched the Cubs lose to the Colorado Rockies.

Out-of-town fans mostly said they didn't want the stadium altered.

"We like it the way it is," said Rebecca Gross, 34, a fan from St. Louis. "We come up here because this is how baseball should be played."