McHenry County Blog

As I understand the concept of the McHenry County SportsPlex planned for Lakewood, Illinois, it is to be a regional facility drawing teams from throughout the country.

Sure, it will aim to find players in the immediate vicinity of McHenry County, but its developers also hope to draw teams that travel nationally. They would fly into O’Hare or Midway Airports.

Now comes Oak Lawn’s Denise and Mike Stillman, baseball fans with friends with enough money to buy the “Field of Dreams” movie farm in Iowa.

And, what do you think they plan for the part of the 193-acre farm that was not used in the movie?

A regional baseball and softball complex.

Indoor training domes.

Opening in 2014.

Not quite the same as the proposed Lakewood facility, which would include soccer and other sports, but close.

And, competition, it seems to me.

Even if the developers are billing it as “a very affordable family tourist destination.”

The McHenry County SportsPlex has about three more months to come up with money to proceed under the extension granted by the Lakewood Village Board this summer.

On a related matter, as I was briefly looking at Northwest Heralds saved for me by my mother-in-law this summer before tossing them into re-cycling, I noticed that Woodstock minor league baseball stadium developer Mark Houser hasn’t found investors to build his vision either.

Finance Committee Chairman Marc Munaretto began the debate over whether to provide the developers of the McHenry County SportsPlex three more months to round up people to loan them money.

Mary McCann took up the cause of those living off Hamilton Road, one maintained by township government.

Kathy Bergan Schmidt commented on traffic congestion.

“The only real major change is that they’ll (fix the intersection).

“That’s not going to cut it,” the Democrat said.

She said she had looked at the Illinois Department of Transportation’s Five-Year Plan. “Within the next five years, the only think…is to resurface.”

“Given the state of the Illinois economy or lack thereof,” she wasn’t so sure even the resurfacing would occur.

She asserted that it was “time we brought the infrastructure first.”

She also pointed out that the SportsPlex’ promise of jobs talked in terms of Full-Time Equivalents.

“FTE’s don’t mean full-time jobs,” she observed.

Gaining the floor, Munaretto explained that Lakewood is “working as well as it’s able to accommodate the residents.

He pointed out that failure would mean “the loss of Recovery Fund bonds in McHenry County.”

Munaretto then dropped this tidbit:

“The EB-5 funding program seems to be fully subscribed.”

His conclusion?

“If we don’t extend, it doesn’t mean this project is going away. It just means it will start a year or two later when the EB-5 (financing kicks in).”

Wonder Lake’s John Hammerand, also a member of the Finance Committee said that the County Board wasn’t “showing good faith.”

The SportsPlex developers didn’t live up to their side of the agreement.

“Now, they’re here begging for an extension. The reason we’re here is that they didn’t sell the bonds.”

Finance Committee member Tina Hill, in whose District 5 the SportsPlex will be located, implied that the contract did not say “on this date we will withdraw.”

She tried to explain away the conflict as a “difference of agreement.”

“The audience has heard of bureaucratic double talk?” Hammerand interjected.

The SportsPlex resolution before the County Board contained the following language:

“ WHEREAS, Section 3 of Resolution R-201004-12-093 (passed April 20, 2010) did state that the Bonds must close no later than September 30, 2010 and in the event the Bonds did not close by September 30, 2010 the Allocation shall expire and revert back to the County…”

“We put a date in these agreements for a specific reason,” Ersel Schuster said. “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know a date certain.”

Speaking to the merits of the project, she contented,

“This would be an absolute gridlock for the region.”

“I lived on Route 47 in the 1960′s. It was supposed to be widened to four lanes. It’s fifty years later.”

She spoke of the “insatiable appetite” that municipalities have for “grabbing and grabbing” and leaving “the rest of us picking up the bill for it.

“I take great offense that we made the “Summertime Blues” list (see Lakewood’s SportsPlex Makes “Summertime Blues” Critique of Pork), a screwball list.

Schuster moved that consideration be postponed until the next County Board meeting, but her motion was defeated in a voice vote.

District 5′s Paula Yensen, a Democrat, announced she was changing her vote from “Yes” to “No.”

She express two concerns:

1. “a lot of questions being left unanswered as far as viability goes”
2. “the 47 corridor and whether the volume can take that kind of vehicle capacity”

“In my district, District 5, people are having a difficult time making their mortgage payments.”

She added that while Crystal Lake, Huntley and Woodstock might have vacant ball fields, in the “Village of Lake in the Hills we’re over capacity.”

The SportsPlex gained enthusiastic support from Crystal Lake’s Barb Wheeler.

First, however, she mused over the conflict between a fear of traffic and the desire for more jobs.

She told of her family’s spending time at the Schaumburg Soccer Fest and having worked with EquityOne to get the multi-use facility built. She bought gas there and ate meals, improving the local economy.

“McHenry County is a great family neighborhood. When it comes to practice time, we can’t find a time in Barrington or Ridgefield.”

“Environmentally, this is going to be a fantastic facility.”

“This is a private facility,” someone from the audience interj

“Excuse me, you’re done,” McHenry County Board Chairman Ken Koehler said.

Munaretto defended free enterprise.

“This is still America.”

Right after Munaretto’s defense of private enterprise, Ersel Schuster said,

“It’s being sold as something for the community and it is not. It is private.”

Then Tina Hill spoke.

“I assume it will cost me some votes in the next election,” she said as she sat before about 100 of her constituents, all of voting age.

She said she was going “to vote my conscience.”

When the vote was held it passed 15-8.

The eight voting “No” on the SportsPlex question were Yvonne Barnes, Randy Donley, John Hammerand, Jim Heisler, Mary McCann, Kathy Bergan Schmidt, Ersel Schuster, Paula Yensen (in whose district the project sits).

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Other articles that might be of interest:

County Board Gives SportsPlex, Baseball Stadium, Wonder Lake Dredging More Time to Borrow Money

Citizens Speak Against SportsPlex, Lakewood Officials Support

Lakewood Approves McHenry County SportsPlex

Lakewood Explains SportsPlex

The Lakewood village board unanimously approved economic incentive and annexation ordinances that allow the $40 million, 165 acre McHenry County SportsPlex to proceed.

The result is three happy guys, Lou Tenor, EnRico Heirman and Jack Porter, plus a plethora of consultants who pretty much answered every question thrown at them.

A zoning hearing started at 6 at the Lakewood-owned Red Tail Golf Club with over 120 people in attendance at its peak.  Less than half that number lasted until the midnight hour when about ten minutes of voting approved all the paperwork.

Besides the consultants, village officials and staff, most in attendance were people objecting from the neighborhood.

Lakewood, trying to garner more revenue, has moved aggressively in the last two months to annex property along the western side of Route 47 up to the northern leg of Route 176.

Adjoining property owners are not happy.  That includes those who will be living next to baseball fields, plus those south of the area in unincorporated Colleens Cote.

Subdivision board member Peggy Keegan put it this way,

“You’re putting a ghastly complex in the middle of a corn field.  If it doesn’t succeed, you have a Motorola, you have a Sears Complex.”

“We feel all of this was done behind our backs,” Tom Balboney, also a resident from the subdivision, said.

An earlier supporter of the project had talked of his father’s having pointed to where Woodfield would be built.

Balboney said that’s why he had moved out here, to get away from places like Woodfield.

“We all feel this was done behind our backs,” he concluded.

Earlier Colleen’s Cote resident Catherine Francis had accurately observed,

Colleens Cote's Kathryn Francis told of the Blandings Turtle and blue birds she had on her property south of the property being annexed for ball fields.

“This feels to the residents as a moving train.  Suddenly you are in our back yard.  Venues could come in that would invite people that we wouldn’t want.  There has been no discussion about our safety.

“Are you telling us you want to do this to us for a half a million a year (in new revenue to Lakewood)?”

Village President Erin Smith told neighbors that their concerns would be taken into consideration.  Concerns included traffic on Hamilton and Pleasant Valley Roads, noise and light pollution.

It took two hours for the project’s consultants, choreographed by attorney Tom Zanck, to finish their testimony.

Traffic Engineer David Miller explained the new intersection that will result once Pleasant Valley Road is relocated south so it is opposite the south leg of Route 176.

No longer will motorists see a sign that asks, “got mulch?”

Once completed, there will be an elaborate entryway.

There will be ball fields all over the place.

A selling point to the proposal was its environmentally sensitive design by Jack Porter, who developed the Sanctuary of Bull Valley in the City of Woodstock.  High quality wet lands like Lighting Creek are being completely avoided.  The cold water creek, which contains the Iowa darter, a little perch, will be crossed by a boardwalk.

The boardwalk will be part of a trail system that will be available to the general public.  The

developers will charge those participating in tournaments, but don’t plan to do the same for family, friends, coaches, etc.

Porter touted the development as “an opportunity to stimulate the Northwest Quarter of the village.”

He described it as “a public-private partnership” that would never have happened without the support of Dick Durbin, Melissa Bean, Pam Althoff and the village board.

500 construction jobs will be created and under terms of the EB-5 financing, which, as former village president candidate John O’Hara put it,

“We’re selling visas to foreign residents.”

The Federally-approved financing device allows foreigners to invest $500,000 in a project like the SportsPlex and get a visa, as long as enough jobs are created.  For the amount of money involved, there must be 353 Full-Time Equivalent jobs created.

O’Hara summarized the financial arrangement like this:

“So, there’s no taxpayer risk for the EB-5 bonds, no taxpayer risk for the Recovery Zone Bonds.

“So, the only risk for the taxpayers is the off-site improvements.”

Village President Smith replied, “That’s right.”

The $18 million in county board-approved Federal stimulus bonds is being used “only as a start-up mechanism.”

It was also described as “a bridge loan.”

The off-site improvements include a promise by the village board to provide sewer and water to the property.  Current Lakewood sewer and water lines are about two miles away, so it may be cheaper to build on-site treatment and water facilities.

“The village has made a commitment to provide sewer and water,” Village Administrator Catherine Peterson explained.

A man asked why the SportsPlex was not being built on the east side of Route 47.

Porter replied there were three reasons:

• “the availability of land (on the west side of the road)”
• “it’s in the center of the county”
• “it would be in the village of Crystal Lake (if it were on the east side of Rt. 47)”

Financial information for the private enterprise was not revealed.

Stressed several times was

“This is all equity financing.”

Eventually, $36 million is being sought from E-5 financing, while $4 million in equity is being sought elsewhere.

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More illustrations here.