‘A Stake In The Game’: What The Proposed White Sox Move Could Mean For The Area It Leaves Behind

It’s opening day across the MLB, and the Chicago White Sox are set to kick off the action when they take on the Detroit Tigers at their longtime South Side site, Guaranteed Rate Field. 

But the team’s house may not stay its home for long.

White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf is tipping his pitches in his pursuit of a new stadium at The 78 megadevelopment. The octogenarian telegraphed an ambitious proposal to build a stadium about 2 miles north with $1B in public money, which would cut its ties with the community the team has anchored for 114 years.

Much of the spotlight has centered on the economic impact a new stadium would have on a 62-acre site bordering the South Loop that developer Related Midwest is billing as Chicago’s “78th neighborhood.” 

But CRE players are raising issues with the financial vacuum a team exodus would leave in a historically disinvested area of the city.

“Giving Mr. Reinsdorf $1B to locate at project 78 would be one of the worst pieces of public policy I’ve ever heard of,” said Quintin Primo III, founder and executive chairman of Capri Investment Group. “The Sox should stay right where they are, and that billion dollars or whatever the number is should be invested right in that community, which is at the confluence of Bridgeport, Bronzeville and Chinatown.”

Primo said the South and West sides have traditionally been “grossly” under-resourced and that a move farther north would be another chapter in the long saga of dollars flowing away from economically disadvantaged Chicago neighborhoods.

Black residents in those areas long relied on factory employment, and when manufacturing companies shuttered in the mid-20th century, it hit those areas hard. At Chicago’s peak of manufacturing employment in 1947, the city counted 667,407 manufacturing jobs. That figure fell to 110,445 about 70 years later, according to the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Great Cities Institute.

Historical and current capital flow disparities in the city are well documented and quantified, including in a 2022 report from the Urban Institute measuring investment dollars sunk into Chicago’s communities. The city's majority-white neighborhoods get 4.6 times the market investment per household as majority-Black neighborhoods and 2.6 times the investment of majority-Latino neighborhoods, according to the report.

“The South Side and West Side have been treated like dirt for years and years and years — and disinvested in,” Primo said. “It’s now a time to become enlightened.”

Guaranteed Rate Field is in the Armour Square neighborhood — bordered by Bronzeville to the east, Bridgeport to the west and Chinatown to the north — and claims Bridgeport as its home.

Over 80% of households in Douglas and Armour Square are families of color, and about 66% of households in Bridgeport consist of people of color, according to 2023 community snapshots from the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning, which groups Chinatown in with Armour Square and Bronzeville with Douglas for demographic purposes.

In addition to seeing far less outside investment over many years, these neighborhoods have struggled to access the capital needed for residents to buy into their communities, as the data visualization below shows. Lending trends in neighborhoods where more than 70% of households are people of color indicate they are afforded a disproportionately smaller slice of the pie. About 51% of all Chicago neighborhoods fell into this category as of 2019, according to the Urban Institute.

Alderperson Nicole Lee, whose 11th Ward encompasses the stadium, said that the Sox belong on the South Side. Nearby bars and restaurants rely on the additional revenue from fans on game days, she said. 

“The whole idea is really that the area supports this ecosystem of businesses,” Lee said. “Catch a game and then come into the neighborhood for dinner or lunch before a day game on a weekend. There's lots you can do around here.” 

There are no recent economic impact studies detailing the Sox's influence on the South Side, though some economists think sports teams generally don’t have an overwhelming financial effect on their surrounding areas. 

Michael Leeds, a sports economist at Temple University, told KPCC.org that after studying sports teams in Chicago, he saw a minimal impact on the economy.

“If every sports team in Chicago were to suddenly disappear, the impact on the Chicago economy would be a fraction of 1%,” Leeds told the outlet. 

To justify a request for $1B in public money, developer Related Midwest estimates full build-out of The 78 would create a $9B economic investment in the city and over $4B in stabilized annual economic impact. 

Gov. J.B. Pritzker has largely been reluctant to put taxpayer money on the table for new stadium developments, urging caution with how the state spends taxpayer dollars when questioned about stadium financing in February.

Economists also largely disagree with the rosy projections accompanying publicly funded stadium development. A 2017 poll from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business found 83% of surveyed economists said “providing state and local subsidies to build stadiums for professional sports teams is likely to cost the relevant taxpayers more than any local economic benefits that are generated.”

This is because most people have a limited entertainment budget, so the money they spend on games gets diverted from other segments, like local restaurants or small businesses, KPCC.org reported. In this case, it would mean dollars leaving Armour Square and heading north. 

However, the ward has enough potential to attract new investors even without a baseball team anchoring the stretch of 35th Street the stadium sits on, Lee said. There are opportunities for business owners to employ people to work year-round instead of only seasonally at the ballpark, she said.

Lee pointed to the Ramova Theatre, which McHugh Construction finished restoring in February, as an example of an economic driver for the area. The company converted the long-shuttered single-screen cinema into a 1,800-person concert hall that will feature live performances and other events.  

The area needs a comprehensive plan for redevelopment that incorporates residents’ needs and the team’s desires, Lee said. Emulating the Sox's North Side foes, the Chicago Cubs, and creating “Wrigleyville South” isn’t a model the community is behind, she said, but the area’s easy access to transit makes it an attractive spot for development opportunities.  

“We need to put some ideas down on paper so that we can shop those around,” Lee said. “Frankly, [the team leaving would] say more about the Sox than it says about the area, about what they're looking for, and that doesn't necessarily mean at all that this is not a viable place.”

Interra Realty Managing Partner Lucas Fryman, whose company brokers many deals on the city’s South and West sides, said a Sox move wouldn't overwhelmingly impact the area’s residential and apartment market. Traditionally, sales velocity has been lower in Bridgeport than in other South Side markets because it has smaller properties that legacy owners hold for long periods, he said.

There are other drivers of residential demand for the area that would remain even if the Sox didn't, Fryman said. 

“Obviously, having a Major League Baseball team in the neighborhood is a huge draw,” he said. “But I think Bridgeport is also just a nice place to live in general. It’s proximate to the Loop, and you only have to go 10 minutes east to be on the lake.” 

And if the Sox do pack up and head north to The 78, that doesn’t necessarily mean the stadium will go vacant. Lee said she would like to have another sports team fill the void, calling it “irresponsible” to level a stadium, especially given construction prices.

With other teams like the Chicago Bears also looking for new homes, Lee said she hopes the city will leverage its assets to find a solution for all invested parties.

“My intention is to have another team in that stadium,” Lee said. “We're not going to lose this economic engine. In fact, I want to grow it.” 

Plans for a new stadium at The 78 will have a major impact on the entire city, but particularly Bridgeport, said Damona Strautmanis, founder and CEO of Impact Development Services. The goal for the existing and new sites needs to be creating vibrant, sustainable, inclusive and safe environments for all of the city’s residents, she told Bisnow in an email. 

“If The 78 plans move forward, the existing stadium should be repurposed and redeveloped with great care and input from residents to include enhancements to green space, public transit, and neighborhood serving uses,” Strautmanis said.   

Despite optimism the neighborhood can withstand the blow, the impact of a Sox departure could create a ripple effect on the areas immediately bordering the stadium, not just where Guaranteed Rate Field is located, Lee said.

“It's not just Bridgeport that we're talking about here,” she said. “We’re talking about the region, including the [Illinois Institute of Technology] campus and Bronzeville. These are all surrounding areas that have a stake in the game here.”