Monday, September 22, 2008

IS CHICAGO’S GAME IN THE MIX FOR PLANNING OF 2016 OLYMPIC SITE?

Chicago—the world-class city of broad shoulders—is flexing its political muscle to host the 2016 Olympics, eager to take advantage not only of the international prestige, but the related real estate development boom that would accompany the games.

Experts say the City of Chicago and local real estate developers are planning a 37-acre Olympic Village at the site of Mercy Medical Center at 31st Street and Martin Luther King Drive. The plan calls for building 7,300 housing units and 1,000 hotel rooms for nearly 17,000 Olympic officials and athletes.

After the 2016 Olympics ends, many of the housing units at the $1.1 billion Olympic Village would be converted to a new Near South Side condominium neighborhood that likely would resemble an extension of the giant Central Station development near Soldier Field.

With the Olympic Village on the drawing board, property values in the surrounding North Kenwood and Bronzeville neighborhoods already are on the rise.

Immediately west of the Olympic Village site, condo sales are on a roll at Opera Lofts in the heart of the emerging 26th Street Lofts District on 26th Street between Dearborn Street and Michigan Avenue. Further south, beautiful mixed-income developments such as Oakwood Shores at 39th and Cottage Grove are rising fast. The proposed Olympic Village site adjoins a historic site at Lake Park Avenue near 31st Street—the birthplace of Chicago-style softball. Ironically, the International Olympic Committee voted to boot both softball and baseball out as an Olympic sport for the 2012 games.

Even though the International Softball Federation includes 117 member countries, it is likely that softball and baseball fell out of favor because the U.S. women’s softball and men’s baseball teams have been so dominant, experts say.

If Chicago wins the bid to host the 2016 Olympics, it would be politically correct for the committee to reinstate softball as an Olympic sport. Softball was born indoors in 1887 in a gym at Chicago’s old Farragut Boat Club on Lake Park Avenue near 31st Street—a softball toss from the proposed site of the Olympic Village.

Historians say on that chilly Thanksgiving Day, George Hancock, a reporter for the Chicago Board of Trade, picked up a boxing glove and tied it into a sphere using the laces. He marked off bases and home plate on the gym floor with chalk and used a broomstick for a bat.

Today, 120 years later, dozens of teams and hundreds of softball players flock to Grant Park at Balbo and Columbus Drive for gloveless 16-inch Chicago-style softball league games on weekday summer evenings. And, popularity of softball among the city’s youth is on the rise because public high schools added 16-inch softball as a team sport. Unfortunately, softball activity at Grant Park has been squeezed in recent years as lakefront festivals increased, developments such as Millennium Park expanded, and affordable nearby parking was gradually removed.

With 16-inch softball likely to be banned in Grant Park and Washington Park to make space for the 2016 Olympics, enthusiasts say now is the time for the city to set aside a few acres and plan a new South Side softball park and Hall of Fame Museum near the historic 31st and Lake Park site.

Since 1996, more than 300 individuals and teams have been inducted or honored annually into the Chicago 16-Inch Softball Hall of Fame in men’s and women’s players, umpire, organizer, manager, team, and supporter categories, notes Al Maag, co-founder of the Chicago 16-inch Softball Hall of Fame. Visit: www.16inchsoftballhof.com.

Although the Hall of Fame finally found a home this summer for its museum and inductee park in west suburban Forest Park, experts say by 2016 a new, larger more centrally located softball museum site likely will be in demand.

While they are at it the Olympic Village planners should build a new softball complex and name it “Mike Royko Park” to honor the memory of the city’s greatest newspaper columnist, a Hall of Fame player, and one of softball’s greatest promoters.