The upstart Great Lakes League pitched North Chicago this week as the home city for one of its first four baseball teams, but it has at least two other Lake County communities in the bullpen and will consider others.
“Someone in Lake County has got to step up to the plate in the next 60 to 90 days if it’s going to happen there for phase one,” said Sherrie Myers, co-founder and managing partner of the independent baseball league, which plans to start play in May 2002. “If it doesn’t happen in phase one, I expect it to happen at some point. I can’t imagine five years from now not having a team in Lake County.”
The league is being started by Myers and her husband, Tom Dickson. The Wilmette couple, who own the Chicago Cubs’ Class A affiliate, the Lansing Lugnuts, in Michigan, have secured non-binding letters of intent from Joliet; Gary; Flint, Mich.; and Dayton, Ohio. They asked North Chicago to sign one earlier this week.
The Great Lakes League, a professional minor league that has no affiliation with Major League Baseball or its farm teams, plans to select four inaugural cities in December.
Its business plan calls for teams to play in new stadiums, with expansion to six or eight cities in three years.
North Chicago officials were non-committal when Myers and Dickson proposed the team, and the $15 million to $20 million stadium the city would be required to build, at Monday’s Community Development Committee meeting. Council members and other officials agreed to explore the idea.
Myers estimated that a team in North Chicago or elsewhere in Lake County could draw 150,000 to 300,000 fans a year. The Lugnuts’ Oldsmobile Park in Lansing, Mich., draws 500,000 fans a year, according to company literature.
“I think this is just the anchor that North Chicago needs for its economic revitalization,” Myers said about the city of 30,000 residents.
North Chicago Mayor Jerry Johnson, who said Wednesday that he favors signing a non-binding letter of intent while the city explores the idea, agreed.
“I think it would be a great thing to have,” Johnson said.
“But the question is, is it a priority now? Our focus is on development, and we have to decide if this is the right way to use our energy and staff.”
If North Chicago doesn’t sign within about 30 days, Myers said the league would make a proposal to one of two other communities.
She said one is more affluent than North Chicago but may have a space problem.
Neither she nor the Lake County Partnership for Economic Development, the not-for-profit community-development group helping the company look for locations, would discuss what other cities were under consideration.
“It wasn’t necessarily North Chicago over any other. North Chicago was one place where there was a good piece of land available, and the infrastructure was there. Infrastructure is key here,” said Lake County Partners spokeswoman Sally Harris, adding that the organization usually helps place manufacturing businesses. “This is an unusual type of company for us to help, but it’s fun. It would certainly benefit Lake County to have a team.”
The league is looking at a vacant piece of land on the city’s west side between U.S. Highway 41 and Waukegan Road, south of Buckley Road.
But North Chicago officials have been unsuccessful in attempts to acquire the land from the state, which has indicated that it wants to hold on to the 162 acres for intersection expansions.
“That’s the X-factor here. I’ve talked to IDOT, and my predecessors have talked to IDOT, without success,” Johnson said. Johnson said there are other parcels, but “this piece stands out as the most viable. The access is awesome.”
Myers hoped the city would have more success trying to buy a portion of it.
“When they tried to get it before, there wasn’t a concrete plan for its use,” she said.
The stadium, which would be one of the league’s predesigned 6,000- to 7,000-seat parks that include grass-berm seating in the outfield, would require about 25 acres with parking lots. The stadium takes up about 8 or 9 acres.
Even if the land can be acquired, coming up with $15 million to $20 million could be difficult for North Chicago, which would build and own the stadium, granting a lease to the Great Lakes League. One Great Lakes League scenario gives the city about 10 percent of revenues as a lease payment.
League officials and Lake County Partners said they would help the city find the money.
“Let’s face it, North Chicago is an economically challenged city, so we’d need assistance–and a lot of it–to make this happen,” Johnson said.
