Mayor Richard Daley will take the lead in selling Chicago to the U.S. Olympic Committee on Friday as the organization holds a meeting in California to look at five possible contenders for hosting the 2016 Games.

"He will be part of the presentation," a spokeswoman for the mayor confirmed Tuesday.

In deciding whether to put forward a U.S. bid to host the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games, the USOC has requested information from five cities: Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and San Francisco.

Each of the five will make 15-minute private presentations to the USOC board of directors on Friday in La Jolla, Calif. They also are submitting written information this week on potential venues and proposed organizational models.

"We will be asking them to consider a number of very diverse options," a mayoral spokeswoman said Tuesday.

While Chicago has yet to make a final decision on whether to bid for the Summer Games, the fact that Daley is choosing to participate personally sends another signal of just how seriously he is weighing the option. The city declined to give specifics on the presentation before submitting the information to the USOC, noting it's a competitive situation.

"We don't want to show our cards," the spokeswoman said.

The city's biggest challenge will be figuring out how to provide a stadium with at least 80,000 seats to hold track and field events, and possibly opening and closing ceremonies. The renovated Soldier Field has only 61,500 seats, making it too small for track-and-field events.

A number of options have been talked about, either by the mayor or by local observers, ranging from temporary alterations to Soldier Field to construction of a temporary facility to use of university arenas in the region.

As it readies for the USOC meeting, the city also is getting very close to naming a panel of business and civic leaders to explore whether it makes economic sense for the city to pursue an Olympics bid.

Patrick G. Ryan, executive chairman of insurance behemoth Aon Corp. and a friend of the mayor's, last month was selected to head that group.

Making a bid can be expensive, and risky. New York City's corporate and civic donors spent $50 million on a run for the 2012 Olympics, only to lose to London last summer.

As it assesses the five cities, the USOC will look at each city's technical plans and "will also assess each city from an international perspective," said Bob Ctvrtlik, USOC vice president/international.

"If ultimately we elect to proceed with a U.S. bid for the 2016 Games, our key criteria for selecting a bid partner will be which city has the best chance of winning internationally--and that means the city that can perform best in strengthening our partnership with the international Olympic movement," he said in a recent prepared statement.

The USOC has not set a timetable for deciding whether to put forward a U.S. bid. The International Olympic Committee will select a host city in 2009.

An initial review started last month, when a USOC delegation traveled to each of the five cities to meet with leaders from the public and private sectors. Less than a week later, Daley traveled to China partly to get a look at Beijing's preparations for the 2008 Summer Games.

PLANTING A GREEN SEED FOR OLYMPICS BID
CHICAGO COULD SET SMART EXAMPLE FOR ENERGY-MAD WORLD
BY BLAIR KAMIN, TRIBUNE ARCHITECTURE CRITIC
PUBLISHED MAY 21, 2006

Forget gold, silver and bronze. It's time to go for the green -- a green Olympics in Chicago.

When I say green, I don't mean shamrocks or payoffs to crooked aldermen. I mean environmentally friendly architecture and urban design: buildings that require less energy to construct and operate. A way of living that heals nature instead of harming it.

This green could be Chicago's trump card if the exploratory committee recently appointed by Mayor Richard M. Daley recommends that the city should make a bid for the 2016 Summer Games. Of course, I suspect that the other green -- the money federal, state and local governments ante up for Olympic venues and infrastructure -- will do more to determine which city is selected. I also have no illusions about the hurdles any American city will have to overcome, especially resentment of U.S. global might, when the International Olympic Committee makes its pick in 2009.

But consider this: Daley already has won widespread acclaim for his enlightened support of green design, including a glowing story in Wednesday's New York Times that proclaimed Chicago "a global model for how a metropolis can pursue environmental goals to achieve economic success."

Even if the story failed to mention Daley's highhanded 2003 shutdown of Meigs Field to turn the lakefront airstrip into a park, it largely was on target. This kind of rave signals one way Daley, assuming scandals don't chase him from office, can set Chicago apart from its competitors and extend the city's extraordinary tradition of design leadership into the 21st Century.

Every architecture buff knows about the "White City," Daniel Burnham's utopia of glistening, grandly scaled buildings for the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893. Well, think of a Green City: an Olympics based not on hugely expensive, eye-popping architectural icons, like the one Beijing is readying for the 2008 Summer Games, but on a farsighted ethic of changing the way Chicago, its suburbs and region work.

To flesh out this vision, I called Phil Enquist, the thoughtful chief planner at the Chicago office of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. Skidmore is best known for towering skyscrapers such as Sears Tower, but it also plays a quietly influential role in laying out visions for Chicago's future, most recently its award-winning 2003 plan for downtown. During our conversation, Enquist reeled off several intriguing, out-of-the-box ideas for a green Olympics:

A greener way of getting around. Chicago is one of the nation's most transit-oriented cities, an image projected by trains clattering around the Loop's elevated tracks. But in reality, only one of every two commuters -- about 53 percent -- take transit to their jobs downtown. So there's considerable room for improvement. "The big idea," Enquist said, "is that you harness the energy of the Olympics to improve transit so that more people are coming into the city by transit. That's a green initiative."

He's right. Like the character in Moliere's "Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme" who learns he's been speaking prose without knowing it, people who take Metra, the CTA and Pace may not realize they're being green. With an eye toward luring more people out of their gas-guzzling cars and SUVs, Enquist cites ideas in Skidmore's downtown plan that don't seem sexy but could turn out to be urban-planning wonders like double-decked Wacker Drive. Among them: creating dedicated bus lanes on east-west Loop streets, painted bright red.

Aided by improved streetlight timing, these relatively inexpensive "transitways" would allow spectators to zip from downtown train stations through the Loop. Then the buses would take the busway trench that cuts through Grant Park to lakefront Olympic venues such as McCormick Place. The same pattern would operate in reverse. After the Games, Chicago would be left with improved transit and a greener way of getting around.

A "demountable" stadium. To date, discussion on Chicago's need to construct a stadium holding 80,000 people for Olympic track and field events has focused on a permanent facility or one that could be turned into another use, such as housing, after the Games. Enquist and his colleagues at Skidmore are exploring another way: a high-quality temporary facility that could be built, then taken apart.

At first, "high-quality" and "temporary facility" sound incompatible, like "pennant-winning" and "Cubs." But Chicago has a history of building drop-dead temporary cities, none more notable than Burnham's White City. And in recent years, architects such as Japan's Shigeru Ban have created striking architecture out of such modest materials as cardboard tubes.

"It would be a kit of parts," Enquist said, explaining that the stadium would likely be made of off-the-shelf steel components "We could find a way to integrate standard [construction] systems with some innovative wrapping to make it a very exciting stadium."

A temporary stadium, he maintains, would be far less expensive than a "permanent big box" with a price tag of $600 million to $1 billion, though he won't specify the cost. It also would take pressure off Daley to get a second Chicago National Football League franchise to use the stadium when the Games were finished.

It all sounds inherently green -- a low-cost stadium that would be the very opposite of a white elephant. But let's see the drawings first.

New ways to combat sprawl. The obvious way for a Chicago Olympics to battle energy-wasting suburban sprawl is to revitalize inner-city neighborhoods, re-using their roads and utility lines so taxpayers don't have to pay for new ones on the suburban fringe. But there's another route: Take the fight against sprawl right to the sprawl.

Here's how: Olympic venues are sure to be spread throughout the region, not only because sports such as soccer typically sprawl across a wide geographic area but also because everyone will want a slice of the Olympic pie.

It therefore makes good planning sense, Enquist said, to seize on the trend toward dense, walkable suburban downtowns (think Evanston, Arlington Heights and Naperville) and funnel public funds to upgrade the commuter rail stations of suburbs hosting Olympic events.

In the spirit of Burnham's exhortation to "make no little plans," Enquist even spoke of a "Great Lakes Olympics," one that would bring cities such as Milwaukee into the fold for sailing, soccer and other events -- and lead, perhaps, to high-speed rail service linking Chicago and other Midwestern cities. That would be very green, getting innumerable people off the highways.

Of course, there's a potential hitch in all this: London officials have promised that the 2012 Summer Games will offer a model of sustainable development. But British architecture critics say the city's public transportation program is struggling and there is an overemphasis on icon buildings. In The Guardian, Jonathan Glancey wrote in January that "the planned stadiums and venues for 2012 resemble roller-coasters from some giant funfair and are likely to be outmoded by the time of their completion."

Surely Chicago can do better than that. A truly green Olympics could set a much-needed example for a world where energy costs seem destined to spiral ever higher. And it might just stop the endless catfighting between the two polarized camps of architecture today, the avant-garde modernists and the tradition-inclined New Urbanists. About all they seem to agree on is that green architecture can help save the planet.

REPORT
BY EVAN OSNOS TRIBUNE FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT
PUBLISHED MAY 15, 2006

BEIJING -- Mayor Richard Daley, on his first trip to the Chinese capital Monday, marveled at Beijing's massive Olympic preparations and said the scale only reinforces his belief that Chicago is well equipped to host the 2016 games.

The mayor also met with Chinese officials to seek advice on how they won their bid for the summer games in 2008. It was the first major event on a five-day Beijing visit, designed to promote Chicago as a business destination, a leader in Mandarin-language study, and a potential bidder for the 2016 Olympic games.

After touring the sprawling construction site, where Beijing will hold an Olympics that is on track to total $38 billion in building and operation costs, Daley said he was undaunted by the price tag, because Chicago would need far fewer preparations.

"I don't have to build all the roads, I don't have to build all the public infrastructure. ? So it is comparing apples and oranges in a sense," Daley said.

The visit comes less than a week after Daley committed Chicago to examining seriously the 2016 Olympics, by forming a committee to measure the economic pros and cons. The major task will be winning over Chicago business leaders, architects and planners who might be wary of embarking on the project.

Unlike China, Daley noted, Chicago could not count on the national government to pay for the games and would have to rely on private funding. But he also sought to dampen concern among Chicago's business community that they it will end up footing the bill.

"We're not asking them to pony up big bucks," Daley told reporters. "What we're asking is mostly global companies, global companies [such as] Coca Cola ?these are not local companies in the city of Chicago."

Sponsored by Chicago foreign-affairs groups and the City of Beijing, the mayor's second trip to China will also feature meetings with Chinese education officials and business executives. Daley arrived in China Saturday, shortly after he returned to Chicago from another overseas trip, a nine-day tour of Jordan and Israel.

The Beijing trip gives the mayor a firsthand view of just what goes into hosting the Olympics. Twenty-seven months from the start of the Games, Beijing hums day and night with construction on its rapidly changing skyline.

The Beijing Games are on track to cost at least $38 billion, most of it for construction. For sports facilities alone, China expects to spend $2.1 billion dollars. But the construction craze goes far beyond that, transforming the city with luxury apartments, sewage systems, shopping malls and office space.

China believes the cost is worth it: The International Olympic Committee expects the games will be profitable, thanks in large part to corporate sponsors eager to appeal to China's 1.3 billion consumers.

The effort includes demolishing an estimated 300,000 houses to make way for more than 70 new gymnasiums, stadiums and training centers. In the past year alone, Beijing has nearly doubled its office space, to 8.5 million square feet. It is building a major new airport terminal and adding four new subway lines. Beijing estimates the process will create 2.1 million jobs.

Though sites remain under construction, the mayor got a bus tour of the rising shell of China's 91,000-seat National Stadium, shaped like a massive steel bird's nest, more than 20 stories high.

He also saw some of the first high-tech panels being affixed to the outside of the ice-cube-shaped National Aquatics center, in which spectators will have the impression of being underwater as bubbles are projected on walls and ceiling. Beijing has also launched programs to teach taxi drivers basic English and promote better etiquette, such as discouraging spitting on the sidewalk.

To be sure, Chicago has a far shorter way to go. Unlike Beijing, Chicago already has enough airport runways, public transportation, and hotels to handle the crowds. And the lakefront not only ensures scenic TV shots, but also provides a pollution-fighting breeze that Beijing would envy. Estimates for an Olympics in Chicago are many times lower than Beijing, ranging up to $5 billion.

The mayor said that any Olympic plans would hinge on more than just the Games, in order to ensure the city could make use of the stadiums and Olympic village after the games ended.

In the past, "It was like the circus coming to town and left," Daley said.

After touring the Olympic site Monday, Marshall Bouton, president of the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, said he agrees a Chicago Olympics is an "exciting possibility," with many important questions to be answered before a bid becomes final.

"I think it makes all the sense in the world," Bouton said. "Chicago already has the public services, the quality of life, the transportation, and the logical next step is to bring the world to see it. But there are a lot of issues to work out, like the cost."

CITY OUT TO PROVE OLYMPIC METTLE
AON CHIEF TO HEAD EXPLORATORY TEAM
BY KATHY BERGEN AND GARY WASHBURN, TRIBUNE STAFF REPORTERS.
TRIBUNE OLYMPIC SPORTS REPORTER PHILIP HERSH CONTRIBUTED TO THIS STORY
PUBLISHED MAY 11, 2006

Chicago committed itself Wednesday to looking seriously at the 2016 Olympics, handing influential business executive Patrick G. Ryan a daunting task: exploring whether it makes economic sense to make a bid.

An enthusiastic Mayor Richard Daley met with senior United States Olympic Committee officials and then named Ryan to head a committee that will research the costs, benefits and feasibility of hosting the games.

"The Olympics would provide a platform to show off our city to literally billions of people," the mayor said at a City Hall news conference. "There would be strong benefits for tourism and economic development as well as new housing and other capital investments."

But "there are many questions to be answered and much more work to be done before any decisions are made," Daley added.

Much of that work will fall to Ryan, executive chairman of insurance giant Aon Corp. and a personal friend of Daley's.

Ryan, 68, will need to win over a wary business community and recruit volunteer work from the city's top architects and financial consultants. Ryan's panel also will have to figure out how to finance the games, which could cost as much as $5 billion.

The tasks are made all the more complex because the city lacks a stadium large enough to host track and field, and a new one could cost as much as $1 billion.

And the mayor made it clear on Wednesday that pursuit of the Olympics "cannot become a financial burden to the taxpayers of Chicago and Illinois."

Ryan "has an uphill climb because to be truly competitive will require a large amount of money," said Alan Sanderson, a sports economist at the University of Chicago.

A Winnetka resident, Ryan has scaled a few hills in his career, most notably building $10 billion insurance giant Aon Corp. He has given away millions in philanthropic donations, including to his alma mater, Northwestern University, where his family name is attached to two athletic facilities and an auditorium. He is also a part-owner of the Chicago Bears.

"I think the most important thing now is we get a group of people together to do the study," he said at the Wednesday briefing. "It will be a representative group and it will be one that will work in the great tradition of Chicago, where we have a great history of public-private partnership."

While members of the committee have not been named, several heavy hitters attended the briefing, among them Susan Crown and Penny Pritzker, both members of wealthy Chicago families with high civic profiles, and Andy McKenna Jr., president of Schwarz Paper Co. and chairman of the Illinois Republican Party.

The committee will have to complete its work in a relatively tight time frame.

The United States Olympic Committee will decide by year's end whether to forward an American candidate to the International Olympic Committee. If the decision is positive, a bid must be submitted to the international organization by next March 31, said USOC Chairman Peter Ueberroth.

Chicago is one of five American cities that have expressed interest in hosting the 2016 games. The others are Houston, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

USOC officials had encouraging words for Chicago during the news conference.

"It's a great city," said Bob Ctvrtlik, a USOC vice president. "It's got all the amenities that would make this a wonderful experience for our athletes."

"Chicago is going in the right direction, and we are impressed by that," Ueberroth said.

Nevertheless, major questions--financial and political--hang over a possible Chicago bid.

Lining up support within the business community will be no easy task, given that many recall how the size and cost of Millennium Park ballooned beyond initial estimates.

And the bid process alone can be quite costly, and risky. New York City's corporate and civic donors spent $50 million on a run for the 2012 Olympics, only to have the city lose out to London last summer.

"For any businessman it's, `How large a gift will you be asking for ... and what will this do to the other community, cultural, arts and civic programs that we value and want to support?'" said Sanderson. "There's no free lunch. It's going to come out of shareholder profits or some other commitment in the city."

Still, a number of business leaders say the well-connected Ryan will be a very effective organizer--someone who can attract both big-time donors and an elite pool of volunteer talent.

"He has a huge circle of friends, colleagues and business associates on which to draw," said Pamela Strobel, the former executive vice president and chief administrative officer of Exelon Corp.

The exploratory committee's biggest and most crucial challenge will be figuring out how the city can provide a stadium with 80,000 seats to hold various track and field events, and possibly opening and closing ceremonies.

The renovated Soldier Field has only 61,500 seats, making it too small for track-and-field events.

Daley did not address that issue Wednesday, but a variety of options have been bandied about, from seeking a second National Football League franchise to occupy a domed stadium here to using university arenas outside the city.

If there is a workable solution, Ryan will be able to find it, said Jerry Roper, president of the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce.

"The best thing about Pat Ryan is his entrepreneurial spirit and his ability to think outside the box," Roper said.

Another question is Chicago's future political leadership.

Though the USOC will decide before the end of the year whether to present an American candidate to the international committee, Chicago has a mayoral election next February. If Daley decides not to run or is defeated by a challenger, there is no guarantee his successor would sign on to an Olympic bid.

Asked about how important that factor might be, Ueberroth replied, "The only thing I can tell you is that a strong mayor is important in our view."

Daley dodged when asked about his intentions regarding a re-election run and insisted that any Olympic bid would not be dependent solely on him.

"This is not the Mayor Daley Show," he said. "This is the Olympics."

But Ryan himself alluded to Daley's importance to the business executives who would be called upon to help fund any Olympics effort.

"The history of the private sector in Chicago is one of supporting vision as well as an established path to success," Ryan said. "Funding the leadership and the vision of the mayor has worked extremely well."

Under Daley, the business community has poured millions of dollars into efforts ranging from the development of Millennium Park to programs designed to improve Chicago's public schools.

The USOC used to charge interested cities a $250,000 bidding fee, something that irked Daley and, in the past, caused him to say he wasn't interested in hosting the Olympics.

But the fee no longer is required, Ueberroth said. And he added that the cost of preparing bids for 2016 will not be borne by the competing municipalities.

"The bid process, we have told all the cities, must be 100 percent privately financed--no public money," he said.

AON'S RYAN TO HEAD CITY OLYMPIC PANEL
USOC, DALEY MEET IN CHICAGO ON 2016 GAMES

(Crain?s) ? Flanked by a coterie of Chicago corporate leaders, Mayor Richard M. Daley Wednesday met with officials from the U.S. Olympic Committee to discuss the prospects of luring the 2016 summer games here, and he apparently got enough of a green light that the city?s efforts will proceed to the next step.

Mr. Daley and the locals received both a ?candid? appraisal of international political realities and heard nice things about Chicago?s improving image during the two-hour session at City Hall. Afterward, Mr. Daley announced that Patrick G. Ryan, executive chairman of Aon Corp. and the retired CEO of the Chicago insurance broker, will head an exploratory committee that will review whether Chicago should or should not pursue the Olympics.

As he has for months, Mr. Daley insisted that the city is far from deciding whether or not to spend the tens of millions of dollars that would be needed just to submit a bid for the Olympics, but he simultaneously suggested that Chicago has much to gain if he handles the matter correctly.

?Chicago would be an ideal site,? Mr. Daley said, and the Olympics ?would provide a platform to show off our city to literally billions of people. There would be strong potential benefits for tourism and economic development.?

USOC Chairman Peter Ueberroth, who was unable to win the 2012 summer games for New York City, said he thought an American city would have a better chance of winning in 2016. He wouldn?t say why, but with the 2008 games in Beijing and London winning the 2012 bid, an argument can be made that 2016 is time to return the games to the Western Hemisphere.

Mr. Ueberroth offered some encouraging words for Chicago, describing it as ?a city on the move.? Anyone who comes here and looks at the city?s economy and culture ?likes what they see,? he said. But he declined to rate Chicago?s prospects, saying only that financial backing is ?overblown? as a factor.

USOC is visiting five cities this week to gauge their interest and fitness. The panel will decide ?in the next few months? whether to support an American entry and, if so, what city, with the actual bid due by March 31, 2007.

Mr. Ryan?s job will be to assess what venues would be available for Olympic events here, and what new venues would have to be built. His group also is expected to test whether so-far indifferent corporate leaders can be encouraged to open their wallets, and study whether Chicago would have to build an expensive new stadium for opening and closing ceremonies.

Related story: Biz leaders cool to Olympic bid

Mr. Ryan declined to say who will serve on its group or how it will be organized, but said it would be ?representative? of the Chicago region as a whole. He would not give a budget figure, but notes, ?The history of the private sector of Chicago is one of supporting vision.?

Among other corporate leaders at the meeting were Penny Pritzker of the Hyatt hotel clan and Schwarz Paper Co. exec Andrew McKenna Jr., the chairman of the Illinois Republican Party.

Earlier this week, Mr. Daley was criticized for his Olympic move by a potential re-election rival, U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Chicago. In apparent response, he said he will not seek the Olympics ?if we think it will detract in any way from our ongoing efforts to improve the Chicago Public Schools, strengthen our neighborhoods, make our city safer and more affordable, or help those most deserving or our support.?

The games must impose ?no burden? on local taxpayers, and guarantee the area new infrastructure investments, Mr. Daley said.

The other four cities the USOC is visiting are Philadelphia, Houston, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

MAYOR DALEY HOPES TO BRING OLYMPICS TO CHICAGO
DALEY TO MEET WITH OLYMPIC COMMITTEE WEDNESDAY
KRISTYN HARTMAN

(CBS) CHICAGO It is a black tie day for Mayor Richard M. Daley and other city leaders as they meet with the U.S. Olympic Committee.

As CBS 2?s Kristyn Hartman reports, five members of the committee are expected to meet with the mayor Wednesday in a closed-door meeting.

Chicago certainly is not alone in its interest. Earlier this week, U.S. Olympic Committee members were in Houston and Philadelphia. After Chicago, they will move on to San Francisco and Los Angeles.

While they are in Chicago, committee members are expected to let leaders know more about the bid process, and the challenges that go along with pulling off an international event.

Experts say everything Chicago has in place already ? including a public transportation system, existing sports venues, plenty of hotels, and two major airports make the city a strong contender.

Mayor Richard M. Daley has talked about preparing for such a large-scale event.

He said it would require ?improving the CTA, improving mass transit; of course, infrastructure is the key dealing with economic development, and that is very important when you get another generation; young people looking at the Olympics in 2016.?

The plan would be to go to business and private donors to underwrite the games. Big building projects would include an athlete?s village, which could later become affordable housing, and an 80,000-seat stadium, which could be made smaller later.

Published reports suggest a host city?s budget could run as high as more than $4 billion.

Daley will soon be heading to China, where he plans to talk with officials about that nation's successful bid for the 2008 Olympics and see what they are doing to prepare.

COULD NAVY PIER BE USED FOR OLYMPICS?
APRIL 11, 2006
BY FRAN SPIELMAN CITY HALL REPORTER

Could an indoor water park at Navy Pier be converted into an aquatic center for swimming and diving events at the 2016 Summer Olympic Games?

That's what the chairman of the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority wants to know.

If the McPier Authority forges ahead with a consultant's vision for a new Navy Pier, Ted Tetzlaff said it should be done in a way that serves two masters: the eight million annual visitors who have turned Navy Pier into the state's top tourist attraction, and the world Olympic audience that would be captivated by the view of the Chicago skyline from Navy Pier.

Many ideas for tourist attraction

"The first question is whether the city is going to go try to get the Olympics. That's something the mayor is kicking around. But if you're building a water center out there, maybe it can be done in such a way that it can be used for Olympic swimming and diving events. Wouldn't it be pretty cool if you had it on the Pier looking back at the city?" Tetzlaff said.

"It's totally in the formative stages. It's literally just an idea that occurred to some of us. While we're figuring out what to do to improve Navy Pier for the next generation, if we can do things that also happen to enhance the city's attractiveness for events such as the Olympics, let's do it."

Three months ago, Toronto-based Forrec Ltd. unveiled its grand plan for the new Navy Pier.

It called for a monorail system that spans the length of the Pier and a spokeless Ferris wheel modeled after the one that debuted at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition.

With two floating parking structures shaped like military boats, the plan would nearly double the 1,700 parking spaces now serving Navy Pier. Forrec also envisioned a 900-seat theater, a nautical floating hotel and a "Great Lakes"-themed indoor water park with entry fees in the $15 to $30 range.

Next week, the McPier board is scheduled to hold a daylong retreat to decide what to do next about Navy Pier. On the table will be Forrec's plan and a host of other "great ideas" that have poured in since the blueprint was unveiled.

No 2016 committee yet

Forrec's plan was "intended to get people thinking -- not about what we do, but what we might do. Others have had ideas as well. We'll put it all in the mix and decide our next steps, what's feasible, what costs money and what can be self-funded," Tetzlaff said.

In a surprise change of heart, Mayor Daley announced last summer that he had decided to make a serious bid to host the 2016 Summer Olympics.

Daley has yet to follow through on his promise to appoint an Olympic exploratory committee comprised of business and community leaders.

"If the city decides to pursue the Olympics in 2016, what should we be doing in anticipation of that to help the effort?" Tetzlaff said.

NOTHING SWEET ABOUT '16 GAMES IN CHICAGO
FEBRUARY 27, 2006
BY JAY MARIOTTI
SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST

TURIN, Italy -- This wasn't an Olympics town as much as a chocolate-and-cappuccino town, a broken-down Fiat town, Detroit without inner-city blight, a gray and slushy place that cared when an Italian won but left more lasting impressions when locals whizzed in the River Po and a Fellini movie broke out during the closing ceremony. I just want to know which of the many clowns out there was Bode Miller.

A vintage Olympics site? Having covered 12 of them now, I think I have an educated idea. Los Angeles works, with its Hollywood aura and existing infrastructure. Salt Lake City works, ringed by mountains and a winter-sports mood. Lots of places are made to be great hosts of the Games: well-organized Sydney (oy oy oy!), perpetually partying Barcelona (Barsneverclosa), quaint Lillehammer (a parka-perfect backdrop for Tonya vs. Nancy), cool Vancouver (beauty, Whistler, pot laws with snowboarders in mind). And lots of places are NOT made to be hosts of the Games: Atlanta, Seoul, Turin and. ... Chicago.

This is a pro sports town

You have to care about the Olympics to successfully host the Olympics. While we are big enough, sporty enough and creative enough to pull it off, I don't think Chicagoans want the 2016 Games enough to bother with an elaborate bidding process. Unless the culture changed since I traded red meat for squid and media-center pizza 17 days ago, Chicago is a die-hard pro sports town immersed in its own teams. Wouldn't the Summer Olympics be seen by most of the local masses as an unwelcome disruption to the White Sox and Cubs seasons, a distraction from Bears camp?

We do not live in a particularly worldly city, contrary to what Mayor Daley thinks. We tend to look inward, not outward. It's possible a larger percentage of people grow up in Chicago and never leave Chicago than do people in other American metropolises, which makes us fiercely provincial, not overly interested in being cosmopolitan and never too passionate about Olympic sports while living in our private cocoon. Even when it comes to premier national sporting events, Chicago's television ratings often are below-average among the top 25 markets. It's all about us. If it isn't about Chicago, it isn't diddly. So why seek the Olympics when Felix Pie will be gunning for his third MVP award, Brandon McCarthy will have just started the All-Star Game and old man Rex Grossman will be coming off his ninth career surgery?

"Cities always have to change,'' Daley said at City Hall recently. "If you don't change, you live in the past. And if you live in the past, you have no future.''

But if Chicago likes itself without the Olympics, good luck trying to convince people that public money should be spent on a five-ring circus that would bring traffic snarls, terrorism threats, doping scandals and Bode-like attitudes to our fair city. Some towns need the Games. We don't.

As it is, the entire concept is pretty much a pipe dream. There is no assurance the U.S. Olympic Committee will nominate a city for the 2016 bid, with Los Angeles, Washington, San Francisco, Philadelphia and Houston also showing interest. The USOC, for what it's worth, has waxed positive about a Chicago bid and believes the city would make a fine host. But any Chicago presentation is doomed if Daley doesn't have a firm stadium plan in place soon, recalling how New York's bid for the 2012 Summer Games collapsed last summer when its stadium plan fizzled.

If Daley were a man of foresight and not always flying by the seat of his pants, he'd have arranged for a temporary Olympic expansion of Soldier Field when he approved plans for the renovated football stadium. But with 61,500 seats tightly pressed against the playing area in an intimate football setting, it's impossible to add close to 20,000 seats and a track-and-field configuration as required by the International Olympic Committee. Another new stadium would have to be built, and this is where Daley loses me and anyone else who understands the Olympics.

Start by checking the mileage

First he suggested he could lure a second NFL team to Chicago as a stadium tenant after the Games. Last I looked, commissioner Paul Tagliabue dearly wants a team in Los Angeles and is committed to keeping the Saints in Louisiana for as long as possible. So forget that. What, then, would be done with a stadium costing between $600 million and $1 billion? Some have said the Hawthorne Race Course could be renovated and expanded for half the price. Yeah, wait until King Jacques Rogge and the IOC princes see a horse track eight miles from downtown posing as their gleaming showpiece.

Pressed further on the stadium issue, Daley had other ideas -- very weird ideas. "You look at Indiana, Wisconsin, Milwaukee, South Bend,'' he said. "You have the University of Illinois at Champaign. Then you look at how you improve transportation to Champaign-Urbana. You would need it. You need better transportation to Milwaukee. You need better transportation to South Bend. You have a lot of options.''

Let me get this straight. The opening and closing ceremonies of the 2016 Summer Olympics, along with the marquee track-and-field competition, would be staged at Memorial Stadium in Champaign. That's 138 miles, 50 tractor sightings and at least 10 Steak 'n Shakes from the Loop. Can't you hear the athletes and media screaming holy hell? And did he say South Bend? Assuming the good fathers at Notre Dame would stop laughing long enough to listen to such a bizarre proposal, using the football stadium as a prime Olympic venue would require a 176-mile round trip from the Loop.

Sorry, Mayor. The IOC isn't into all-day commutes for an opening ceremony and long-jump event.

L.A. one that has what it takes

It seems like yesterday when I walked out of a colossal Olympic Stadium in Athens, a town that lost its financial tail on the 2004 Summer Games. Athens needed the Olympics because it was out of the European power loop and wanted to make an imprint, which was accomplished at a high cost. Chicago has no such identity crisis. We are established as the hub of the American Midwest, a beautiful, vibrant, self-sufficient city -- with its own share of problems -- that needs the 2016 Olympics only to feed the mayor's ego and help his scandal-ridden political future. Of the other potential U.S. bidders, Philadelphia has a similar stadium issue, the San Francisco Bay Area is too sprawled and Houston is too steamy in late July. I think Los Angeles would be wonderful again, as it was 22 years ago. I think Washington would be the next-best option. And I think Daley needs to bow out while his dignity and common sense are still intact.

The slogan in Turin was "Passion Lives Here.'' Actually, I think passion sublet the place for two weeks. Would we care a little more in Chicago? Maybe.

But if the Sox and Cubs made deals at the trade deadline, they'd get bigger play. Keep your eye on the ball, Mayor. The baseball.

Jay Mariotti is a regular on ''Around the Horn'' at 4 p.m. on ESPN. Send e-mail to inbox@ suntimes.com with name, hometown and daytime phone number (letters run Sunday).

OUR CITY OF BIG SHOULDERS COULD CARRY OLYMPICS
PUBLISHED FEBRUARY 26, 2006
MIKE DOWNEY

A number of misconceptions exist as to what Chicago would need to do to act as host city for the 2016 Olympic Games.

Chief among these is an oft-repeated, totally unfounded notion that Chicago's bid would require a fortune in taxpayer dollars to build a giant new stadium in place of Soldier Field.

It would not.

Soldier Field could serve as the site for Opening and Closing Ceremonies with no foreseeable difficulty.

The only thing it could not do, because of the stadium's configuration, is have the Olympics track-and-field competition there. While most of the host cities do this inside the main stadium, there is no International Olympics Committee bylaw of any kind that insists upon it.

So any opposition to a 2016 Chicago Olympics that begins with an objection to the cost of a billion-dollar colossus of a stadium is, at best, unfair.

New York's failed 2012 bid was tied to a proposal to construct a new principal stadium on the city's West Side, a plan that voters turned down flat.

Athens sank in red ink by creating an entirely new airport to gain the IOC's approval for 2004. Beijing is in the process of building five very expensive arenas from scratch to be Olympic venues for 2008.

If not ready-made to be an Olympics host city, Chicago is closer to being fully equipped than most. It would need to come up with a natatorium for the swim competition and a velodrome for the cycling. It must find a proper locale for an Olympic Village to house more than 30,000 athletes.

Otherwise, the city is a superb fit. It has hotels galore, public transportation of every kind, subterranean levels (e.g., Lower Wacker Drive) that could be utilized for a two-week period exclusively for Olympic-related passage with no interference to the normal traffic above.

Chicago would have the United Center for basketball. It has the Fire's new stadium in Bridgeport for soccer, with Soldier Field likely available for the gold-medal final.

Baseball and softball have been eliminated, but the Cubs and White Sox could clear out for a fortnight so Wrigley Field and U.S. Cellular Field could be used for other outdoor events?additional soccer, for example, or field hockey.

Gymnastics or boxing could be at Allstate Arena. There are a great many university gyms nearby for wrestling, fencing and so forth.

Sailing and rowing on Lake Michigan would be a lovely sight to behold. Beach volleyball would be played along Lake Shore Drive, just as it is on the U.S. pro tour.

Equestrian events could be at Arlington Park, unless someone has a better idea.

And speaking of racetracks, that could be the solution to Chicago's track-and-field needs. Marc Ganis, a Chicago-based consultant who has advised many cities on stadium and event proposals, says the Hawthorne plant in Cicero could be modified without too great a cost, if all of the principals were willing.

These are the kinds of ideas Mayor Richard M. Daley and his associates will be addressing in the weeks to come. Everything, however basically boils down to two things:

Is Chicago willing to be a host city to an Olympics? And is it worthy to be?

Shortly?perhaps in a matter of days?Chairman Peter Ueberroth and the United States Olympic Committee will begin an assessment of the interest and qualifications of cities for 2016. A final choice by the IOC won't be made until 2009, but the U.S. nominee likely will be named by 2007.

"I expect several cities to make a run at it," Ganis says, citing Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington-Baltimore as the most likely, "but speaking as objectively as I know how, I firmly believe that if Chicago goes after it, it will be the front-runner."

Ueberroth, who was born in Evanston, and his committee will need to find out firsthand why Chicago should and why it shouldn't. Is it organized or disorganized? Is the person in charge strong or weak? Is the public rallying behind it or resolutely against it?

A million details would need to be worked out. Costs and potential benefits must be discussed. And those opposed will have their say.

Not here, though, not today.

A chance like this can come along once in our lifetimes. To have the 2016 Olympics here in Chicago is not a great idea. It is not a good idea. It is perfect.