Fire announcing request for proposals for SSS on Monday

Discussion in 'MLS: Expansion' started by Fanaddict, Apr 3, 2003.

  1. Fanaddict

    Fanaddict Member+

    Mar 9, 2000
    streamwood IL USA
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    proposal to be announced for chicago soccer stadium

    Peter Wilt, fire GM, said today at the fire charity luncheon that on next monday a proposal to build a soccer specific stadium in some chicago area community will be announced.
     
  2. Jeremy Goodwin

    Jeremy Goodwin Member+

    SSC Napoli
    Feb 16, 1999
    Club:
    Montreal Impact
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Re: proposal to be announced for chicago soccer stadium

    Whoa, kickass! :D
     
  3. robviii

    robviii Member

    Dec 21, 2001
    Chicago
    Re: proposal to be announced for chicago soccer stadium

    copy cats ;-)
     
  4. Peter Wilt

    Peter Wilt Member

    Jun 11, 1999
    Whitefish Bay, WI
    clarification

    Fire is issuing a request for proposals on Monday...NOT a proposal. BIG difference.

    sorry,

    peter
     
  5. FootyMundo

    FootyMundo New Member

    Mar 1, 2001
    Minneapolis
    Look for that suburb to be West of the city as I know for a fact they've looked at the availability of land in Naperville within the past year.
     
  6. GPK

    GPK BigSoccer Supporter

    Aug 5, 1999
    San Diego, CA
    Club:
    Chelsea FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Edited title
     
  7. art

    art Member

    Jul 2, 2000
    Portland OR
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    cool...will we get to see them?
     
  8. anderson

    anderson Member+

    Feb 28, 2002
    Club:
    Houston Dynamo
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Very interesting.

    According to Wilt: "Many of the communities have been pre-selected based on ongoing communications we've had with them over the last year or so."

    That makes a lot of sense. You'd think that Wilt wouldn't just send out an RFP if he didn't already have an idea about which communities may be interested.

    Even so, I'm just curious about why you'd issue an RFP in the first place and then discuss doing so publicly. Why not negotiate with certain communities more quietly behind the scenes?

    I'm not at all criticizing Wilt's approach - he certainly seems to know what he's doing - just curious why you'd go so public about the process at this point.
     
  9. Stevedm

    Stevedm Red Card

    Jan 19, 2000
    Chicago
    Re: proposal to be announced for chicago soccer stadium

    Yeah WHOO HOO ( Sarcastic!!!) Please!! Biggest politcal spin that I have ever seen. Yeah let's wait a whole two seasons after Arlington dies to do this!!
    This has about as much weight as the 60-90 day announcements that come from NY.
     
  10. FootyMundo

    FootyMundo New Member

    Mar 1, 2001
    Minneapolis
    Re: Re: proposal to be announced for chicago soccer stadium

    Hey, how about you submit your resume to MLS to get these deals done. I'm sure you're qualified.
     
  11. Stevedm

    Stevedm Red Card

    Jan 19, 2000
    Chicago
    Re: Re: Re: proposal to be announced for chicago soccer stadium

    You want to see where I am coming from?? Talk to the fans of the Metro's they will tell how this stuff works. You want to buy everything that is said on here feel free! I don't and I won't! I said all along when things are done great I tip my hat. When I "feel" smoke being blown up my ass I say it!! I may be wrong I may not be. Time will tell!! I just feel that proposal for stadiums is something should have been worked on all this time not just left sitting on the shelf until this coming Monday. I understand that they had Naperville stuff to worry about and hammering out deals with SF. AEG is a big company they should have handled the Arlington fiasco better!! and they should have these types of things going simultaneously!!
     
  12. anderson

    anderson Member+

    Feb 28, 2002
    Club:
    Houston Dynamo
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Re: Re: Re: Re: proposal to be announced for chicago soccer stadium

    The piece of the article that I quote above has Wilt saying that the Fire’s been in communication with several communities.

    As I suggest above, that's the only way it makes any sense to announce that you're issuing an RFP. The loss of credibility would occur if you announced that you're sending out an RFP and then received no serious response. Since Wilt indicates that the Fire's been in communication with communities for some time, it's likely that he has a good idea about what sort of response will probably come from one or more communities.
     
  13. Rocket

    Rocket Member

    Aug 29, 1999
    Chicago
    Club:
    Everton FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    What exactly goes into a response to a RFP? Are they a detailed bid with specifics on proposed financing, location, etc, or are they more general in nature?
     
  14. anderson

    anderson Member+

    Feb 28, 2002
    Club:
    Houston Dynamo
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I certainly don't claim RFP expertise - some people spend much of their time writing and responding to RFPs - but most RFPs I’ve read are detailed enough allow the bidders to identify with reasonable specificity in their responses the resources that they’d provide (e.g., amount and qualifications of any staff, location and descriptions of any real property, amount and type of any equipment, etc.), related experience that they would bring to the project, and amount of time that the project would take (including milestones).

    The issuer often provides supporting materials as part of the RFP that would help the bidder understand what should go into the response (in this case, maybe things like financing structures and general stadium drawings from the Frisco project).

    Given that limited knowledge, I think two things about the Fire issuing an RFP to communities for a public-private stadium proposal strike me as interesting:

    First, there’s a public sector involvement that may affect what goes into the RFP and the response. I have no knowledge of Illinois public finance law, but certain requirements about public disclosures may apply when a public jurisdiction (e.g., city, county, regional development authority, school district, etc.) is going to propose spending at least some specified amount on a project. If so, then it may make sense for the RFP and/or response to specify in detail what level of public investment would be necessary and over what time frame.

    Second, this seems to me to present an almost inverted relationship between the RFP issuer and the potential bidders. Usually, the issuer needs some goods and/or services and has the money to pay a winning bidder. In this case, the issuer has a need (i.e., a public-private partnership for a stadium), but wants the bidder to provide, presumably, most of the money. Of course, the analysis would be premised on the idea that both the issuer (the Fire) and the bidder (a community) would benefit from the stadium. So this issuer needs to present this RFP in a more persuasive light to these bidders than is usually necessary. That’s part of the reason why I think it’s probable that Wilt and the Fire must already have some idea of who’s likely to respond.

    In any event, putting together a good RFP requires some time and effort. The fact that the Fire are issuing their RFP this Monday (4/7), only a few days after the Frisco public-private stadium deal was announced, also indicates that they've been doing quite a bit of work for some time.
     
  15. NACIONAL

    NACIONAL New Member

    Dec 31, 2001
    Medellin, Colombia
    scuse me... what is an RFP
     
  16. Blong

    Blong Member+

    Oct 29, 2002
    Midwest, the real one.
    It's either Really Funny Person or Request For Proposals. Judging by the title of this thread, I would go with the person one b/c I only see one mention of a proposal.
     
  17. mattie g

    mattie g Member

    Nov 12, 1999
    Northern VA
    Re: clarification

    [​IMG]

    Troll...
     
  18. FootyMundo

    FootyMundo New Member

    Mar 1, 2001
    Minneapolis
    Re: Re: Re: Re: proposal to be announced for chicago soccer stadium

    You mean trying to get a SSS stadium built in tough economic times is hard? My goodness, stop the presses. Just because things don't happen at the pace you want, doesn't mean you need to act like an ass.
     
  19. FootyMundo

    FootyMundo New Member

    Mar 1, 2001
    Minneapolis
    It depends. Typically the person making the request will outline specific items that should be addressed in answering the request. What items the Fire wants addressed in its request is probably fairly predictable - land, financing the city might offer, locations, etc., etc., etc. The general idea is to get communities who are interested in the project competing for the right to win it.
     
  20. Juan Luis Guerra

    Juan Luis Guerra Red Card

    Jun 11, 2001
    New York City
    The best wishes for the new proposal. I hope your plans for a new Stadium can become a reality very soon. I realized that Chicago has enough fans to filled a 25,000 seat stadium most of the time. Chicago next to LA, NY/NJ and CL. DC are the best attendancewise
     
  21. ShadowNC

    ShadowNC Member

    Apr 25, 2001
    Rocky Mount, NC
    That looks pretty promising. Good to see that there may be 2-3 potential candidates there.
     
  22. Fuegofan

    Fuegofan Member+

    Feb 17, 2001
    Chicago
    It's great to see that the Fire is committed to a SSS. After I heard how good the Soldier Field deal was, I was afraid that any hope was in the really distant future. This gets it moving again. I hope that Chicago puts together a proposal.
     
  23. Hattrix

    Hattrix Member

    Sep 1, 2002
    Chicago
    Who was asked?

    Were RFPs sent to cities only, or were counties allowed to bid?

    Here's my question: SF is on park land and belongs to the park district. The Forest Preserve District has heaps of land along the Edens Expressway in Chicago. Could a Frisco style development, maybe 3 or four grass fields and one or two plastic ones, plus parking and a stadium, be set up on land the county owns?

    Before shooting this idea down, consider, the cook county board is broke. They've been forced to shut down tobogan runs to cut costs. Those things take up a great deal of space and sit idle 9 months out of the year. A soccer facility could be in use several times a week (the grounds; the stadium, though, could host international games any weekend the Fire wasn't at home) for 9 months and could generate some revenue for the county board. The land requirements are quite small, since they could utilize existing parking facilities, only having to expand a bit, and will keep a lot of green space open. What kind of legislation would make this possible--and might it offer a way around Daley--particularly after 2006, when the Republicans retake Springfield?
     

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