Facing Northwestern University’s plan to profit off its proposed rezoning of Ryan Field for commercial events, while hiding the true costs to the surrounding communities, we’re announcing the formation of the nonprofit Most Livable City Association and launch of our first campaign – “Field of Schemes” – aimed at raising awareness about Northwestern’s plan.
In September, Northwestern unveiled its design for the new Ryan Field, describing the new facility as a “more intimate setting” and a “modern stadium campus with beautiful plazas.” After its carefully scripted public-relations rollout, the university secured positive media coverage, including in this newspaper, that repeated a consultant’s paid-for opinion that the project will generate “significant financial benefits to Evanston.” The rollout downplayed the costs to the community from the university’s plan to sell alcohol and hold 12 stadium concerts every summer at the 35,000-seat venue – a capacity between the size of the United Center and Wrigley Field but operated by a nonprofit that does not pay property taxes.
But we don’t have to accept Northwestern’s latest attempt to turn Ryan Field into a tax-exempt booze-and-entertainment center by dividing our community with assurances that sound too good to be true. Far from offering a fair deal to the taxpaying residents and businesses of our community, only Northwestern will be enriched by hosting commercial events at its new stadium. It’s a cash grab.
While Northwestern plans to profit off its Ryan Field proposal, it will impose costs on the rest of us that will change our community drastically. We don’t want to become Wrigleyville – some of us have lived there, done that. Ryan Field differs from most other college stadiums in that it sits in the heart of a residential neighborhood. Neighbors knew when moving here there would be a handful of college football games. They did not know Northwestern, a nonprofit university, would try to rezone the stadium to profit from massive, alcohol-fueled concerts and nighttime entertainment while maintaining its tax-exempt privilege.
We have multiple concerns with the university’s plans for Ryan Field – many of these problems will affect residents and businesses throughout the entire community:
- Noise and light pollution from stadium concerts and other large-scale events,
- Nuisance behavior from intoxicated fans leaving concerts,
- Public safety issues from intoxicated drivers,
- Insufficient parking spaces and traffic congestion,
- Local patrons avoiding Central Street’s neighborhood retail shops on event days, and
- Northwestern’s failure to shoulder any of the community’s growing property tax burden to fund essential city services, pension obligations, and public schools, despite carrying on for-profit business activities.
Northwestern has an opportunity to show it is a good neighbor. The university should heed the community’s long-standing concerns about large-scale commercial events and alcohol sales at those events. Twelve stadium concerts per year equals one per week in the summertime. Just a few years ago, Northwestern told Evanston they would not try to rezone the stadium for any commercial events. This promise goes back further: when one of us moved to the area in 1985, a Northwestern senior executive said there was no reason to worry because the zoning code protects the neighborhood.
Our association plans to formally launch the “Field of Schemes” campaign in the next few weeks and will call on elected officials to make their positions known. Our goal is to enter a meaningful neighborhood partnership with Northwestern that aligns with the university’s educational mission and with maintaining quality of life throughout Evanston and Wilmette.
As we get this campaign started, you can learn more about how to take action by sending us an email.
On behalf of the Most Livable City Association,
Judy Berg
Andy Berman
David DeCarlo
Fiona McCarthy
Laurie McFarlane
Ken Proskie
Yvi Russell
So more events that could bring thousands of people into Evanston where they would patronize local businesses is a bad thing? That’s an interesting perspective. Just kidding, as a lifelong Evanstonian I would totally expect to hear this perspective. But maybe both sides can still overcome their differences and find common ground. How about NU agrees that one concert per year will be NPR’s Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!?
My own personal experience on the evenings when there are night games at the stadium convince me that these proposed changes to Ryan Field will have a profoundly negative impact on the quality of life in the neighborhood surrounding the stadium on the evenings when these events take place. I experience the awful traffic on game days. I have seen the broken glass on the sidewalks and beer cans in the front yards. I have personally experienced the behavior of intoxicated people wandering around the neighborhood and seen someone urinating in my neighbors driveway. Evening concerts where alcohol is served will impact many of our summer weekend evenings in a very negative way. When we moved here we knew we would have 7 game days a year, including one or two at night. We did not know NU would try to change the football stadium into an evening concert venue serving alcohol.
The for profit activities at the proposed Ryan Field, including beer sales, would also produce more tax revenue. And I’m sure Central Street shops aren’t worried about an influx of outsiders into the neighborhood because they spend money which also produces tax revenue.The disruption to the neighborhood from concerts should be seriously considered but the arguments of the objectors must also be serous.
People who feel the new concert venue will be a boon to Evanston seem willing to gamble on assertions that NU makes in its own–not the city’s–interest. The city must do its own due diligence before throwing out zoning ordinances or giving NU a free pass to do whatever it pleases, while still contributing a pittance to the city compared with comparable universities. And don’t assume the Central St. businesses all benefit from game day. In fact numerous business owners speak of a decline in traffic and revenue on game days. We had all better do our homework, and demand accountability and transparency from both the city and NU.
This is a great letter to the editor, but I respectfully suggest that much of the authors’ argument hinges on their assertion: “We don’t want to become Wrigleyville” being universally true. Who is the “we” in that sentence? Surely, it is not every Evanston resident. Likewise, I think the authors do a good job of channeling the ghosts of our city’s teetotalling, handwringing past. Yet their demonstrated acumen in paranormal divination does not erase residents such as myself who would very much like Evanston to remain a place of rollicking fun, loud music, vibrant stuff, and where there is a “booze-and-entertainment center” in walking distance from my house. (Awesome!!!) The things this stadium would bring are good and desirable.
It seems to me that many communities invite the sort of investment Northwestern is willing to make in Evanston. It is especially attractive that the City doesn’t need to outlay any incentives for a generational project with outcomes that benefit our entire city.
Does anyone think that Highland Park today would deny a Ravinia proposal because of crowds when they generate hundreds of thousands of dollars a season for the local economy? Put me down as an enthusiastic “yes!”
With all due respect to our Evanston neighbors, the notion that Northwestern pays insufficient taxes in Evanston neglects one central fact. Without Northwestern, the value of one’s residential property would be a fraction of what it is. Many of us who moved to Evanston did so because Northwestern is an anchor securing the value of our investments, social and economic investments. Imagine how much worse the economic impact of the pandemic would have been on Evanston without Northwestern. Our business community has still not fully recovered and this stadium proposal offers a real opportunity for economic recovery. That is why Downtown Evanston wrote to this paper to support the new stadium proposal and that is why it’s important for other Evanstonians to get on board and make some sacrifices to secure the economic future of our city. Further, we need to face up to the rapidly declining school enrollments and the rapid aging of our population. Casting the city in amber and nostalgic memories of football games gone by does nothing to secure the future. We need new development, new jobs and new housing and this stadium proposal moves us is the right direction. Build the stadium, invite the musicians and reform the city ordinances preventing success.
This evening my wife was sexually harassed by one of the many vagrants that has found warm welcome in our supposedly livable city. I genuinely implore the Most Livable City Association would turn their attention away from a project that would do our broader community great good and towards the ever increasing homelessness crisis that is making several parts of Evanston almost unlivable.
Hank, if NU actually paid property taxes those Hundreds of Millions not just 3.5M could be used for services to reduce homelessness and improve our schools. Maybe Evanston just shouldn’t sell ourselves short in asking NU to pay their fair share if they are going to hold these massive events.