Claiming that Chicago’s plan to expand Wrigley Field violates the city ordinance, the owners of eight Wrigley Field rooftop clubs filed a suit to ask the court to block the plan.
The city’s Landmarks Commission recently approved the $375 million project to improve the aging ballpark. The expansion plan includes adding more seats and erecting seven outfield signs. When the plan was announced a month ago, the business owners strongly opposed to the plan because the signs would block the view from their rooftops.
The owners have a 20-year revenue-sharing agreement with the Cubs that guarantees their views in exchange for 17% of the clubs’ annual revenues. Alluding to the revenue-sharing agreement with the Cubs, the owners wrote in the suit, “The rooftops possess a legally protected interest in their view of Wrigley Field.”
Interestingly, the suit does not allege a breach of contract claim given the reference to the agreement in the filing. Rather, the owners are seeking the court to block the plan mainly because it allegedly violates the city’s 2004 ordinance designed in part to protect the ballpark’s features such as “the unenclosed, open-air character, the exposed structural system and the generally uninterrupted ‘sweep’ and contour of the grandstand and bleachers.”
The Cubs previously announced that the renovation would start after this season ends.