SBJ Facilities: Chicago’s venue situation gets a civic-minded approach

I’m headed to NYC this week for SBJ’s Dealmakers conference, where I’ll be hosting back-to-back panels about mixed-use development. Last week, I was in D.C. at the P3 Higher Education Conference talking about the same topic in a college sports context, specifically The Grounds in Winston-Salem, N.C. Mixed-use meets the panel circuit!

When a handful of Chicago pro sports teams requested public funding from a (financially) broke city and state during a short stretch of 2024, Eleanor Gorski was equipped to lead the Chicago Architecture Center into the fray.

Gorski spent nine years in the city’s Department of Planning and Development and felt the CAC -- a nonprofit that derives most of its funding from providing tours of Chicago architecture -- could contribute to the discourse.

“We’re entering an era where government has a lot more to concern itself with,” she said, “and we need the ability for an organization to look broader across different political spectrums and span election times.”

The CAC convened a group of concerned citizens and produced a self-funded, nonpartisan report titled “Win/Win: The New Game Plan for Urban Stadiums.” Even if the report doesn’t impact Chicago’s scenario, it offers readers possible solutions to avoid their own repeat in the future.

You should download and read the report yourself, but here are some of the main points:

• The group the CAC convened is not anti-sports, and they recognize sports as a powerful uniter in an otherwise fractured society. They were clear that Chicago should prioritize keeping its teams.
• The group views stadiums as catalysts for public infrastructure development, unlocking investment in transit and influencing neighborhood development and investment for decades to come. Sports venues benefit those that pay to be inside them, but public infrastructure around these venues can benefit the public on a daily basis. The report named this kind of interconnected stadium the “Chicago Model.”
• Make better deals. This is especially pertinent in Chicago, where the city has been handcuffed to some degree by a bad Soldier Field deal from the early 2000s that it’ll be paying off until 2032. Approach dealmaking with long-term city planning front of mind, not just the most recent lease.
• The group advocates for a repurposing of the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority from a board that maintains the White Sox’s Rate Field into a body that would actively lead dealmaking and oversight of all the city’s public sports venues. This could help address the issue of municipal governments, including Chicago’s, often being on the back foot in negotiations with teams over stadium and arena deals.

The report stressed collaboration among teams and cities; it didn’t address how difficult it can be to get team owners to do that with anyone, let alone other teams they may view as competitors for resources.

“It’s well known how teams operate; it’s just like any other business, and what we’re advocating for is to treat them like other businesses,” Gorski said. “Be an equal partner, man up, and literally get staffed to do this work.”

The group interviewed a range of people involved with sports venues, including owners and executives from the Stars, Blackhawks, Sky and Cubs and the United Center, as well as architect Dan Meis and Canopy Team CEO Fran Weld.

The reaction to the report’s publication was mostly positive, especially from the government side. Gorski said that teams, while appreciating the effort, felt their side of the story wasn’t told as well.

The CAC’s report is aspirational. Can it affect Chicago’s sports venue situation? It’s unclear, especially only a few weeks after it published the report.

“Of course, we still have a lot of folks to talk to, and we’re getting more requests all the time, including downstate Illinois legislators and community groups,” Gorski said. “We’ll see how it has legs. I’m really hoping a legislator takes this as a project, because it really needs a champion at a level of power to help see it through.”

Tom Pistore called Oak View Group’s $300 million Canadian TD Coliseum project (about U.S. $213 million) “a revitalization,” not a renovation. Regardless of the term of art, the 40-year-old venue in Hamilton, Southern Ontario, has been remade and modernized during the last two years, giving Canada’s Golden Horseshoe region an almost-new, second major indoor sports and entertainment venue (after Scotiabank Arena in Toronto).

The market

The venue, which reopens Friday, is OVG’s eighth owned-and-operated arena development project and sits in a broader market with more than 7 million people (not counting Toronto). Pistore oversees OVG Canada and was brought over from UBS Arena. There are similarities between the two markets -- Hamilton and Long Island -- in that they sit in the shadow of a major metropolis and are easily forgotten huge population centers themselves that can support a busy arena.

Premium

Owing in part to the size of the market, it’s no surprise that premium seating sold very well, even though TD Coliseum’s lone sports tenant is the NLL’s Toronto Rock (OVG is still in conversation with the AHL about putting a franchise at TD Coliseum, Pistore said). Ninety percent of the 24 suites are sold, and eight of the arena’s event-level suites also sold quickly on seven- to 10-year deals (the ninth-floor suite is being held back for per-event rentals).

The event-level suites (Brisbin Brook Beynon Architects designed the renovation) appear to be a first in the arena business; they’re essentially the end zone suites you’ve seen in stadiums but in an arena setting. Their bowl-facing openness seems like it’d be amazing for concerts, but Pistore said they’ll work, too, for sports. They’d be on the glass for hockey. The floor suites ranged in cost from $350,000 to $400,000 (over the seven- or 10-year term), depending on location and when they were bought.

“They sold out as fast as we brought them to market,” said Pistore.

‘Fak’

Southern Ontario native Matty Matheson has partnered with OVG on the arena and his Iron Cow Public House will sit on the arena’s exterior, with access to the arena but operating as a stand-alone restaurant the remainder of the year. Why is this significant? Because Matheson’s Neil Fak character is my second-favorite in the hit Hulu show “The Bear.” As funny as “Fak” is, he just doesn’t have enough lines to top Cousin Richie. But unlike Cousin Richie (played by Ebon Moss-Bachrach), Matheson is actually in the restaurant business as an owner and former executive chef.

I ran out of space in my recent story on the $245 million renovation of Charlotte’s Spectrum Center, so I didn’t touch on the uptown arena’s mixed-use development potential.

As part of a 15-year lease extension, the Hornets signed a long-term ground lease with the city to build a practice facility on a gravel lot adjacent to the arena. The facility, which is under construction and expected to open ahead of the 2026-27 NBA season, will take up roughly half the lot, former Hornets executive Fred Whitfield told me. Whitfield and several others mentioned the team’s relatively new majority owners, Gabe Plotkin and Rick Schnall, have considered mixed-use development for the other half, including a hotel.

“What was really different with the new ownership coming in was they had bigger vision for the district,” said another source. “They really thought of the arena outside of the arena.”

What that “arena” outside the 20-year-old Spectrum Center could look like is unclear. The bus station sitting across a street is the biggest issue to solve; many civic leaders agree the 25-year-old facility doesn’t provide a great atmosphere for its users nor the best surrounding scenery for the sports venue. A 2022 plan to incorporate a new bus station into the Hornets’ practice facility proposal fell through.

An open expanse of surface parking lots sits on the opposite (north) side of the arena, but assembling that land (which includes 14 plots of land owned by nine different entities) would be tricky, time-consuming and expensive. Reign Capital acquired a city block sitting diagonally across the street from Spectrum Center for $28 million in February.

The Hornets have kept any mixed-use plans very close to the vest; any announced plans will make it even harder to acquire the other plots of land than it already is.

But “now that the practice facility is underway, they have the ability to think more broadly about the district,” said Tracy Dodson, who worked on the Hornets’ arena lease extension when she was a city economic development director.

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Delaware North’s Inter Miami/Freedom Park food and beverage business win -- confirmed last week by the club -- was its biggest in years and the best example yet of the company’s deeper integration of Patina Group.

“[Patina] was critical,” Jeff Rosenthal, Sportservice’s head of growth, said recently. “There is such a heavy premium presence in the new stadium. Patina has put together some great concepts. They’re in every single meeting. This is truly the best of Delaware North, and Patina is taking a heavy lead in it.”

Patina is running Freedom Park premium spaces F&B and has its “own voice” in the deal structure, Rosenthal said, which is unique.

“We’re always one voice as Delaware North,” he said. “But in this particular deal structure, Patina has a larger seat at the table from a conceptual and execution standpoint, but also from a deal standpoint.”

Patina President John Kolaski told me earlier this year that Patina wants to double in size over the next five years. It’s becoming increasingly important to Delaware North as mixed-use becomes table stakes in the sports industry. That helped Delaware North score a renewal with the Braves -- Patina is developing a restaurant concept for The Battery -- and played a role in Miami, where the company will likely have a presence in the surrounding development.

Philip Pothoff was made VP/premium hospitality this summer, the first position at Delaware North in the decade-plus of owning Patina that spanned Sportservice and Patina Group.

“There isn’t a pitch that we’ve done this past year, or that we anticipate doing in the next year, that won’t have Patina at the table,” Delaware North COO Jamie Obletz told me earlier this year. “It’s resonating with our current portfolio.” Their task is “to better amplify it in the marketplace.”

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Checking in with our friends @FootyScran. They recently shared an image from X user @ConorB2000_, who copped this perfect match-day meal at FC Oberneuland, a club playing in Germany soccer’s fifth tier. A lengthy sausage, functional piece of bread and a beautiful pint for the equivalent of $7.55. Cheap and to the point. Ja, ich würde das essen.

(Email potential “Would you eat/drink this” candidates to bmccormick@sportsbusinessjournal.com)

This is thought-provoking: The Atlantic’s story on the disappearance of everyday nudity (it’s impacting design of locker rooms in sports venues).

• HKS will design the Commanders’ new stadium at the site of their former home, RFK Stadium. The Commanders expect to break ground on the covered, 65,000-seat stadium in 2027 and have it ready by the 2030 season.
• The $245 million Spectrum Center renovation overcame several hurdles, including the COVID pandemic, inflation and an ownership change, as I detail in last week’s magazine.
• Also in last week’s SBJ is an examination at the North Carolina Research Triangle, one of the great sports markets in the U.S. This includes its formidable event-hosting capabilities.
• The latest SBJ Tech newsletter from my SBJ colleague Ethan Joyce delves into a pair of ticketing stories: AXS hiring a pair of executives to help it prepare for LA28, and the long-term goals of SailGP’s relationship with Fever.
• Joyce also reports that the Houston Dynamo FC selected Tixr as its ticketing provider. The club will lean on the platform to support match tickets and other fan-related activities like premium experiences, merchandising and other events around Shell Energy Stadium.