So Mayor Daley and the Olympic advocates needed to find some public money to back the Olympic bid, but didn’t want to use “tax money” since a lot of taxpaying folks would get upset. So they discovered air rights. They say that air rights over the truck staging area south of McCormick Place can be sold for $100 million. Presto! Found money for the Olympics. And, by the way, if Chicago doesn’t get the Olympics, they’ll sell the rights anyway. (Tribune Sun-Times ) The site belongs to McPier, not the City, but that can be remedied.
This may be “found money,” but I think the issue is “why was it lost?” What other land is McPier sitting on, not using fully, while taking money from every restaurant meal in the central part of Chicago? With RTA and the State crying for funds, can’t we put some of this into use now?