Counting yard signs or letters to the editor doesn’t tell us anything about where most Evanston residents are on the issue of Ryan Field. There’s another way to assess public sentiment about the university’s proposal and the larger community’s interests.
Residents are on a spectrum of support when it comes to the stadium – some oppose any stadium there or any activities at the football stadium, including football. And some support as many stadium activities as possible and wonder, what’s the use of all those seats if they’re empty for all but 10 days of the year?
Most Evanston residents – about 59,000 of us of voting age – are somewhere in the middle. And many of our neighbors are simply indifferent to the issue, if they’re even aware of it. Let’s call them typical Evanstonians.
We won’t hear from typical residents who don’t care about the stadium or proposed live performances. Those residents won’t email their council member, talk to their neighbors, write a letter to the editor, attend a meeting, sign a petition or put a sign in their front lawn.
Typical Evanstonians would not be upset if only sports and graduations happen at Welsh-Ryan Arena or Ryan Field. And let’s be fair – the same residents would not be upset if the university rebuilds the stadium and adds live performances at Welsh-Ryan Arena or Ryan Field.
The Evanston folks who are indifferent – who may never experience a live performance at Ryan Field or the burden in north Evanston of additional traffic and noise – might be just the people who benefit the most from the new Ryan Field. They might own a local construction company, business or restaurant. They might work as stadium vendors or security. And residents who are indifferent to the stadium also pay property taxes to support Evanston’s schools and city government and would benefit along with the whole community from the stadium’s new tax and fee revenue.
We can all understand that there are many residents in our community who have not weighed in, yet who stand to benefit from the rebuild of Ryan Field and the proposed additional live performances. But don’t misinterpret their indifference as neutral. Count them in.
Jane Grover
Ryan Field neighbor
Seventh Ward resident
During the transportation portion of last evening’s presentation, Peter Lemon (the expert consultant from Kim Lee Horn) mentioned that shuttle buses to Ryan Field would arrive by reversing one-way traffic on Ashland Avenue, a one-way south block between Central and Lincoln Streets. While shuttle buses to football games and other special events at Ryan Field have followed that practice for years, it is inherently dangerous and I fear tragic accidents are inevitable.
Let me explain. I live on this one-way block of Ashland, and am often in my front yard tending my garden. While there I frequently serve as a volunteer traffic monitor as motorists and cyclists attempt to drive or pedal north on the one-way south street. In response to me waving my arms in a circle and calling out that they are going the wrong way on a one-way street, most turn around at the earliest opportunity. Some thank me; others mention that they recall going north on Ashland in a shuttle bus, so they assumed it was all right to travel that way when they were in or on their own vehicle as well (neglecting the “One-way” sign at the end of the block).
With hundreds more shuttle bus trips envisioned with more intensive use of Northwestern’s facilities available as an entertainment venue, attracting visitors unfamiliar with Evanston’s streets and traffic laws, I suspect the incidence of wrong-way traffic on Ashland will skyrocket. Collisions between cars are an obvious possibility, but I also fear for the safety of the schoolchildren coming out of St. Athanasius on the west side of the street. The children are used to checking only to the north to see if it is safe to cross the street en route home after school, but if a car is coming the wrong way from the south, they might not see it.
Why is it ever a good idea to reverse temporarily the direction of a one-way street? Either make this one block of Ashland a two-way street, or keep it a one-way street all the time. Any other arrangement is inviting tragedy, sooner or later.
At last nights presentation, Northwestern representatives stated the set-up would take 20 hours pre-concert and involve a dozen or so large semis to deliver the materials then the construction would start. People would start coming in as early as 4 pm on the night of the concert, and would take at least 2 hours to clear out afterward, another 8 hours. Then it would take another 20 hours to tear down and ship out the stage etc. Central Street would be turned into a 4 lane street with no parking allowed during this time. So for 10 out of 12-14 “summer” weekends the area would be under constant construction, deconstruction, shops along Central basically become inaccessible, anyone else who wants to use Central or other area streets better think twice. Also parking would consume all of downtown, campus, any available parking within Evanston would be taken and scores of shuttle buses would be clogging the streets from 4 pm through midnight on concert nights. Northwestern representatives last night said this would be “just like football game traffic”. Not likely. They are assuming 30% of people will arrive by public transportation while admitting only 10% arrive that way for Ravinia. This is so inappropriate for this location, if approved they should just tear down the Central St shops now and turn it into a four lane road like Lake Cook Road or the Eisenhower, which is how smaller crowds now get to United Center and Ravinia.
Northwestern has not said anything about tax revenue to the city in all their glossy presentations. As a non-profit they do not need to pay any taxes to the City of Evanston, sales or otherwise. They operate a hotel on campus that they do not pay Evanston hotel taxes. They have been insistent on not paying “in kind” payments to the city to make up for properties they purchase and remove from Evanston property tax revenue, while still using city services such as police and fire. They fall back on their charter as a non-profit to justify this. At last night’s hearing, which was all Northwestern presentations on how great the new Ryan Field will be with its concerts, to allay the concerns of the community, no one mentioned tax payments to Evanston. Because there will not be any.
A well designed and executed sample survey could provide a more useful view of the sentiments of Evanston residents than a count of yard signs, petition signatures or letters to the editor. The latter tracings of public opinion, as Ms. Glover’s suggests, are the expressions of those particularly involved with the issue. Surveys were devised to collect data that represents the views of all people in the population of interest, rather than just the avid partisans. They certainly can provide better information than the guesswork about the views of the “silent majority” asserted in Ms. Glover’s letter.
One survey, sponsored by the University and released in January, purports to show that Evanston residents support Northwestern’s proposals. Was this survey well designed and executed?
We don’t know, six months after the results were released, because the firm that conducted it has not yet disclosed essential information needed to enable a judgment. Neither Impact Research nor the University have responded to requests that the details of the survey’s methodology be provided to the public.
This is an unforced error. The failure to disclose how the survey was conducted fuels a worry that something is not “on the up and up” with the project. One alderman has termed the survey a “push poll” – not a real data collection but a disguised advertising effort. One resident in a public meeting reported being called multiple times for the survey, which should not happen if the sampling and data collection efforts are carried out correctly.
Transparency about the survey’s methods might help to dispel these and other concerns. As things stand, even though a sample survey is a good tool to measure public opinion about the stadium project, its usefulness has been diminished by the failure to disclose how it was conducted. Moreover, the lack of transparency violates an elemental scientific norm.
Some supporters of the stadium project assert that the survey should be given credence because Impact Research has done work for the Obama and Biden campaigns. For the record, I voted for Obama and Biden and I do not question the integrity of Impact Research. The firm’s previous client list, however, does not tell us how the work in the stadium project survey was done.
What do we need to know? A survey has many components that have a bearing on whether the estimates it obtains are useful. I would start with the details of how the sample was designed and selected, the exact wording of the questionnaire and interviewer instructions, how the interviewing work was managed during data collection and how the investigators dealt with the inevitable problem of lack of participation by some people who were invited to respond.
Of course, the results of a survey conducted in January could be different from one conducted today. Learning about the January effort could also inform the design of a new survey, whose findings could replace Ms. Glover’s speculation about the views of Evanston residents.
Northwestern has not presented a serious plan to address questions of traffic, noise, or parking. Nor has it demonstrated how a massive commercial entertainment venue is appropriate for a residential neighborhood. Finally, it has not made any offers to make a meaningful financial contribution to the city. Count me out!
There is a saying that if you want to rob a bank just start a fire down the street because that’s where all the attention will be.
This is similar to NU’s marketing for the “Rebuild Ryan Field” project. While people are talking about rebuilding the stadium NU is deflecting attention from the real issue at hand which is blowing up the Zoning Code for the U2 (University Athletic District) and in effect stripping residents of zoning protections provided by community zoning codes. Northwestern is by asking for a major zoning change which they have been denied for the past 50 years by past city councils an d the Illinois Surpreme court https://sites.google.com/view/spotlight-on-evanston/home The change would allow NU to hold commercial/professional events in the the entire 30 acre-U2 district. Ryan Field, where everyone is looking, is just 1 facility in the U2 district. There is the New Rocky Miller baseball field, Welsh Ryan Arena, softball fields and more. The U2 district is in the middle of residential neighborhoods, adjacent to homes, near schools and public parks on single lane roads This makes no sense from an urban planning perspective. The amount of money the city will make in permits was a small % of the surplus $50,000,000 “found” from the 2022 budget. We can run this city without selling out or residents for the sake of NU profits. It would be nice to have the permit money, however that’s a one-time payment- Ripping down the zoning code for U2 and negating the rights of resident’s rights to quiet enjoyment is a lifetime or as some people say a one-way door. Once you go in there is no getting out.
NU has presented an all or nothing proposal-either you let us have commercial amplified events 7 days a week in the U2 district from 10am-10pm on weekdays and 11pm on weekends and holidays or they won’t rebuild the stadium because they can’t afford it. There are plenty of stadium rebuilds and renovation which can be built for the 480,000,000 the Ryans donated. NU seems to think it is ok to spend $800,000,000 for a stadium and create a privately owned commercial entertainment district on property tax exempt land. The answer must be NO to the commercial zoning change and yes to a stadium you can afford to build and maintain.
Realizing that financing higher education is a legitimate concern for Northwestern, and that investments from the generous gifts from the Ryan family (and other wealthy alumni?) offer potential long-term sustainable sources of income to finance university operations, I wonder if multiple options for what such funds might be invested in have been sufficiently explored. Surely there are other ways to invest the sums of money proposed to retrofit Ryan Field to become a year-round, money-making concert venue (without incurring the considerable negative impact on the residential neighborhoods in Evanston’s 7th ward and southeastern Wilmette). My question is: How does the rate of return on the Ryan Field project compare to the rate of return by investing the same amount of funds in any of the following options: (a) adding them to the rest of NU’s endowment funds; or (b) leaving them in the Ryan’s (and other alumni’s) private hands to make money in their own business enterprises, making annual gifts to NU from the profits; or (c) finding other “underutilized assets” at NU that could be developed (such as research facilities and support that might lead to breakthroughs and new patents)?
We don’t have a sign in our yard, but please don’t interpret that as silent support for the new stadium.
Many of Northwestern’s peers in the Ivy League community pay significant PILOT (payment in lieu of taxes) payments to their communities. Looks like Harvard pays about $10.8M, and Yale pays $10M. While Princeton’s payment of $3.9M is smaller, it’s still 4X what Northwestern is paying Evanston.
Our alderman Tom Suffredin has suggested that Northwestern needs to come to the table with a better offer, and we agree. Significant PILOT payments should be part of that better offer. (and that is in addition to any proposed revenue to the city coming from the concert events)
Adding to my previous comment,
The NU transportation plan is a joke. The United Center has an adjacent, dedicated 6,000-vehicle lot for 23,500 attendees. NU will have east and west of the arena lots holding a total of 1,400!
My understanding is that Northwestern has limited the number of proposed concerts to 10 with 28,500+ attendees over three-four months in the summer (climate-driven requirement).
BUT they propose an UNLIMITED number of concerts with attendance under 10,000 (which is above the capacity of the Greek in LA). NU wants those as well.
It looks to me like Northwestern wants a for profit venue for its
not-for-profit, tax exempt institution.
No one wants to prevent an upgrade to Northwestern’s football stadium. But we should say an emphatic NO to the for profit entertainment and food and alcohol venue they are proposing.
Thank you, Jane, for the reminder about the positive differences the Ryan Field proposal can make across our city. How many downtown businesses will stay open, and even grow, due to event night business? How many more residents will bring home paychecks from their construction jobs at the site? What differences will that make to their families? Will it mean deeper rainy day funds or more “we can afford it” answers? How many students, retirees, or those seeking flexible work will have a little more cash through part time work? When we look at numbers, whether it be diners, hotel night stays or jobs, remember there are people who benefit behind each of those numbers.
Count me in, too.
While we’re asking questions, yes how many businesses will actually profit? Based on history of NU and promises, it’s questionable how accurate their best case scenario projections really are. How many other things could they propose that are measurable and safer economic bets than adding another venue for concerts, a highly specialized FOR PROFIT business with very small margins except for (oh goodie) alcohol sales. How about NU answer some questions? How about be transparent about noise, pollution, traffic congestions, lack of parking, barely green building plans before being challenged, but as part of the actual give and take of a negotiation. How many meetings do we need to have about answering questions before they actually show up and answer some? How about not sending interns and students to stand in at “open hours” meetings with neighbors who are not able to do anything but take notes and when asked had no idea who those “notes” were going to or if they would ever be addressed…..so far not, btw. It’s very disappointing when unsubstantiated estimates about the up side to the project are tossed around freely, but no concerns are addressed with facts or conversation. I would truly hope that NU would come to the table as an open, honest, concerned good neighbor, but history and this latest plan gives little hope for that happening. While we all want economic drivers for the city, I am not naive enough to think hopes and prayers and good wishes for the success of an unproven concert venue are going to make it so. I’m puzzled as to why we should be expected to take their word for the fact that businesses are going to have burgeoning business from concert goers. Show of hands on who has gone dress or home decor shopping before a concert. Of the 200+ concerts I’ve attended, no shopping, almost never gone out to dinner, and never booked a hotel night. Plus, they’re building their own on-site entertainment venues….not promoting existing ones. Levy doesn’t get involved unless they’re going to reap the benefits. Please, show me some proof of guarantees all those jobs- temporary and otherwise are going to Evanstonians, proof that they’re going to have a plan to address parking other than on tiny side streets, proof of NU funding infrastructure improvements to streets affected, proof that this removal of zoning laws, that were a contributing factor in the desirability of living in Evanston, won’t inherently change the character of the entire city for the worse. Zoning changes that will impact the entire city.
Build a stadium, recruit great football players, fund women’s sports teams, utilize the stadium for Big Ten events, create programs that enhance the educational experience and reputation of NU. How about making all the campus buildings ADA compliant, for heaven’s sake. That’s a good place for the Ryan’s to spend some money.
While we sharing info with people who haven’t been vocal, how about explaining that this vanity project is more than double every other college stadium rebuild. How about the cause and effect of spending double the norm being the sole reason they need a for profit concert venue. Regardless of personal opinions about the stadium, the fact remains, they’re overspending and forcing a For Profit model into a non-profit institution. If it was any other non-profit trying to pull off that shady move, everyone would be saying, hard no. It’s a nice spin to say the cranky neighbors don’t want a stadium. The thing about spin is, it isn’t truth.
Don’t confuse a lack of lawn sign or letter to the editor as indifference. Many don’t like wading into politics. Others, heaven forbid, might not read the RoundTable or may ignore or not receive city emails. The last 3 years have been hard for many residents and NU is capitalizing on that. “Let’s build a shiny new stadium and bring back all the monies to Evanston that the pandemic took away”. Except we know that Metra ridership is up and we know that vacancies downtown are trending down. We aren’t out of the woods, but we don’t need to fall victim to NU’s PR scheme that a large entertainment venue is our only option.
If NU rebuilds the stadium, they should most definitely be encouraged to host community events and small concerts all that are allowed under the current zoning. We don’t need to strip the zoning protections to have some fun and let local businesses make some money.
The notion that Northwestern’s Ryan Field scheme will impact Evanstonians who are agnostic or ignorant of the plan, applies equally should this significantly outsized development incur substantial environmental, infrastructure, economic, and livability costs.
Evanstonians who so far are indifferent to the project may wake up one day to the reality that their residential zoning protections have been sold to the highest bidder; small businesses have been sacrificed on the altar of large corporate interests; neighborhood balance and scale, such as envisioned in the Evanston Thrives project, have been discarded at the behest of the wealthy and powerful; and environmental and quality of life factors have been subsumed by the interests of a few.
To those who believe the new Ryan Field will be a tax revenue, employment, and business panacea, I ask, how has that calculus worked in past decades, as Northwestern embarked on a huge construction boom? Did the “intergenerational wealth”, incredible employment opportunities, and contracts for minority- and women-owned firms—which NU now promises–materialize?
No one I know suggests doing away with Ryan Field or its mission-appropriate athletic, cultural, and entertainment events. But that’s a far cry from acceding to the demands of a non-profit university to establish a massive, commercial entertainment district in an area ill-suited for such an endeavor.
Furthermore, by what logic ought benefits for Evanston be predicated on an admitted harm?
I live in the Seventh Ward and have been accused of being a NIMBY. To Evanstonians who remain uninformed about the Ryan project, or think it is of no concern to them or their neighborhood, I also say NIMBY! Meaning that when it comes to the consequences of allowing inappropriate development, Next It Might Be You.
So, if I understand this letter, you’ve determined through a process of divination what “most Evanston residents” think about NU’s stadium plan. Impressive, though harder to verify than other types of data.
It’s telling that the word “concerts” appears nowhere in this letter. The author extends the fiction that opponents of NU’s plan oppose the stadium itself — and even football. As President Biden would say, “malarkey.” I have not met or talked to a single person who opposes (a) the building of a new NU stadium or (b) football games. I certainly don’t. The issue is whether one powerful, fabulously wealthy institution should have the power to dictate a decisive zoning change.
I think there’s a reason NU’s surrogates avoid saying “concerts,” though it is at the heart of their plan. They don’t want Evanstonians to know what’s coming: https://chicago.suntimes.com/2023/6/22/23769900/fall-out-boy-chicago-wrigley-field-loud
Hi neighbor – I’m thinking live performances could include more than just music concerts, such as story-telling events, spoken word performances, and comedians.
So true. “Live performances” could include many things, which could be either pleasant or awful. But the zoning change NU is seeking specifically asks for “concerts” that are the capacity of the stadium. NU could present story-telling events, spoken-word performances, and comedians now, without any zoning change at all–they just don’t.