I had an interesting conversation witha reliable source who had talked with fire president Julian Posada. Posada said he has to fight with bridgeview with even maintenace problems such as leaking pipes and electrical problems.I guess bridgeview's latest money problems are causing issues with the stadium and the fire.
Not surprising give n that none of the expected development around the stadium occurred to help pay for the stadium bonds... Worst mistake Bridge view made was not taking 15 million from AEG...
How long is the naming rights deal with Toyota? My guess is that they will leave skid marks and no one else would dare pony up the cash. Anyone else notice that the video billboard on I-55 has been dismantled? I'm sure they hadn't paid rent on it in a long time. For the past year or so, they had one sponsor running ads on it. That could/should be a bigtime revenue generator. Hundreds of thousands of cars a day go by there and for a long time, that was the only billboard on that stretch. Recently CBS put up a video board directly across from the old TP billboard. In the grand scheme of things, that is a pimple on their problems, but it shows how poorly managed this whole stadium is by the Village. They are screwed. It will have a negative impact on us as well.
If I remember right the deal with Toyota was for 10 years. Some really low figure too (per year) compared to other naming rights of other SSS at the time. Guppy was responsible for that deal I believe.
That seems right. Boy, if things don't change and more events aren't booked in there, no one will want to put their name on that place. Maybe they could get Bridgeview Bank to take the naming rights in exchange for a write-down on some of the debt. We know that the RR tunnel construction project is just dead in the water, leaving 71st street in worse shape than it was in. When does the town start scaling back on traffic control overall? Or has it already?
If I had to guess, I would guess the Village wants Andrew to commit more money to the stadium and area as a whole while Andrew doesn't think it's his responsibility to do the investment the Village should be doing. From an outside perspective it looks like a stalemate.
It doesn't get much worse for a road than being completely closed with no hope of reopening in the foreseeable future.
Yes. However, until the league and team can afford to leave, we are tied to the stadium and it has become a problem for the business itself. I hate to say thisq. but the stadium deal turned out badly. So far.
If the fire had waited a couple more years until 2008 or later there would have been no new stadium. We would still be in naperville or folded.No town in Illinois would now fund a stadium and rich people stay rich by having someone else spend money not them.
True, very true. It has turned out to be a bad deal for the Village of Bridgeview (there have been many news stories about this over the past couple of months). I feel a bit bad for them, that we are there and they are suffering with doubling real estate and other taxes (to pay for the bonds). It has turned out to be a bad deal for the Fire. Although the attendance has not dropped off that much from Soldier Field, it has not (and probably will not) improve. There is even less of a presence by the Fire. I often have people who know I am soccer fan, what happened to the Fire? Not "Why is the team bad?" but "Do the Fire still exist?" It has turned out to be a bad deal for MLS. One of the "marquee" teams in MLS is going nowhere fast. I totally agree that we are tied to Bridgeview for foreseeable future. Unless we get an uber-rich new owner (which won't happen) who also happens to be best friends of Rahm Emmanuel, who rams through a deal to get a Chicago stadium built (which won't happen), we are in not going anywhere. As fanaddict states, it would be almost impossible in today's economy to move forward. The irony is that there are now lots of space available, which could be picked up for very little money. We are not going anywhere as fans and the Fire are not going anywhere as a team.
But then what happens to Toyota Park and Bridgeview? It becomes ammo for the naysayers of publicly-financed SSSs: "Look what happened to Bridgeview!"
Can we just ride out our lease at this place and start over? Seems the location is really a bad spot and if the village wants to make things difficult than perhaps it's time to find somewhere else. Of course starting from scratch wouldn't be any good and good luck finding a town to build a stadium and repeat Brideview's mistakes.
I think the other side to this would be that we would not have a stadium in bridge-view. I do feel that proper investment by the right owner would probably get us a stadium built in the just off of 55 along side a train stop if it was being discussed today.. Mayor Rahm is dying for development and land has become much cheaper and so have construction costs... so there is a upside to not have had a stadium to this point.. DC did not die without one...and quite frankly I think we would be better off as franchise if we were still at Soldiers Field
Rahm is dying for development but isn't wlling to pay for it.You think there are a lot of people willing to write a check for 95 million for a soccer stadium in Chicago? If you know of any please give us names.Paying huge rent and no chance to make a profit was not good for the future of the franchise. Back before bridgeview chicago was willing to give land by sox park but not willing to pay for the stadium. That was rejected by AEG.