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The headline and accompanying editorial — which had me cheering over my morning coffee — are referring to the state’s proposal to use sales taxes to buy and rebuild Wrigley Field so whoever owns the Cubs can sell more tickets and concessions and make more money.
The paper’s zeal is goosed by wanting to make things uncomfortable for its rival, of course, but it’s an encouraging turn of events nevertheless. When it comes to corporate welfare, the Wrigley Field proposal is only the tip of the iceberg. In the last year or so, the city’s agreed to fork over $8.5 million to Grossinger Auto Corp. to build a car dealership at North and Clybourn, $51 million to a consortium of developers to convert the old downtown post office into a luxury hotel and condos, $58 million to developers to build an 18-story tower on top of Union Station for another hotel and even more upscale condos, $5 million to Navteq, the hugely successful navigations technology company to move from the Merchandise Mart to 100 N. Riverside, and $880,000 to Barry Callebaut to move its corporate office into the old Montgomery Ward building at 600 W. Chicago. Callebaut, by the way, was the company that closed the Brach’s candy factory, throwing roughly 3,500 west-siders out of work.
