Evanston City Council approves Northwestern's Ryan Field renovation, future concerts
EVANSTON, Ill. (CBS) – The Evanston City Council approved the plan to rebuild Northwestern University's Ryan Field and allow concerts at the revamped stadium.
CBS 2's Mugo Odigwe has more details on the long-negotiated deal. The final vote was 5 to 4, with Evanston's mayor serving as the tiebreaker.
"I think we have to be willing as a community to embrace change. Change is uncomfortable and change is difficult," Mayor Daniel Biss.
Northwestern sweetened the deal last week following some major community pushback. The university said it would pay the city more than $150 million a year to the City of Evanston – up from $100 million over 10 years.
Under the latest proposal, Northwestern has sweetened its deal. The university would pay the City of Evanston $3 million a year for 15 years as a "Good Neighbor Fund" to further projects of interest to the city and Northwestern.
Also included are an investment by Northwestern in the Evanston local workforce development amounting to $500,000 a year; a $500,000 yearly investment by Northwestern in racial equity programming for the City of Evanston; a contribution of at least $1 million a year to help Evanston nonprofits, community groups, faith-based institutions, and schools; a fund of at least $2 million a year to award financial aid to students from Evanston who attend Northwestern; and a contribution of at least $250,000 a year by Northwestern to improve downtown Evanston. These and other provisions would all be paid out for 15 years.
But people who live in the area said they didn't have enough of a say in the changing proposal, and they're not OK with possible noise or traffic distribution from live concerts.
"Any deal of that magnitude will take months and months to negotiate. And that has not happened here. This has been rushed on the part of Evanston. We have not had time for our corporation counsel and our outside counsel to really provide guidance to us," Councilmember Melissa Wynne said.