How much has Millennium Park cost Chicago to build?

When Millennium Park opens on July 16^th,  you will get your first official look at how the City spent $475 million to design and build this park. 

The project is over budget by $350 million and four years behind schedule.  Millennium Park was initially budgeted at $150 million - less than one-third its actual cost. Originally, the City promised that revenue bonds that were issued for $120 million would be used to finance the project, and paid back by income from the parking garage. Private donors were to make up the original difference in costs.  However, by the middle of the year, the financing for this project was growing and the City was looking to the Central Loop TIF fund to provide some of the funding for the park.

In the spring of 1999 the city issued $33 million of additional bonds (the year before it had sold $137 million, $17 million more than its initial $120 million estimate), banking that the garage would generate enough revenues to pay off the higher amount. The park is owned by the city but was funded through a public-private partnership.

According to the city's budget office of the total costs of $475 million, the city is paying $270 million - a majority coming from bonds backed by revenue from the underground parking garages and some from the Central Loop TIF Fund. The remaining $200 million is being donated by private contributors whose names are sprinkled on features throughout the park - Wrigley Square, Bank One Promenade, BP Pedestrian Bridge, McCormick Tribune Plaza, the Lurie Garden are all private contributors.

Tax Increment Financing: How much taxpayer money has been spent on this park?

After taking $35 million from the Central Loop TIF fund in May, 2000, the City of Chicago dipped even further into what is now a dwindling TIF redevelopment fund to help pay for Millennium Park. In 2002 the city used $50 million from the Central Loop TIF fund for the park. Some $95 million from the Central Loop TIF fund in total has been allocated for Millennium Park, according to the Chicago Capital Improvement Plan. Diverting Central Loop TIF funds to Millennium Park seriously reduces the potential amount of surplus money that will be in the fund when it expires in 2007.

Construction and Project Oversight: Delays and More Delays

Because the project bridges the railroad tracks, the transportation department initially managed the construction of the park. In July 2000, however, because of the rising stature of the park and its amenities, it was taken over by the city's Public Buildings Commission. The park was constructed four years behind schedule.

Daley blamed architect Frank Gehry for costly delays after a 2001 investigation by the Chicago Tribune found that poor planning, design problems and cronyism led to skyrocketing costs, though Daley backed off that assertion days later. Officially, many factors have been blamed for the delays and cost overruns:

• a vision that grew more grand as time went on. In 1999, the city enlarged Millennium Park to 24 acres by incorporating an existing eight-acre stretch of Grant Park above the 1,800-car Grant Park Garage, which was undergoing a $31 million reconstruction by the Chicago Park District.
• structural problems with the underground parking garages;
• engineering challenges inherent in building the immense band shell, including a crane so heavy it had to arrive in pieces for fear it would crack the street below.

City Hall must be open and clear about capital funding programs and should create procedural and policy reforms to head off future cost overruns.   Particularly for projects like Millennium Park, which are targeted toward Chicago's tourism industry, the City must seriously consider expanding its funding resources to include use of McCormick Place and Exposition Authority resources.

The Mayor's Capital Improvement Advisory Council should take a close look at such overruns, especially ones as dire as Millennium Park's.

Politics and Banking Interests

Millennium Park will open July 16 with a three-day entertainment orgy, courtesy of a $700,000 gift from Bank One and J.P. Morgan Chase, the soon-to-be-merged banking behemoth that just hired Mayor Daley's brother, Bill.  The $700,000 opening weekend gift from Bank One and J.P. Morgan Chase is aimed at persuading Chicago that the merger will only serve to increase Bank One's philanthropic contributions, which topped $60 million over the last 10 years.

Maintenance Costs

Still being hammered out is the size and makeup of the New York Central Park-style conservancy that will govern the park and oversee annual programming and maintenance expenses expected to approach $10 million.

Project manager Ed Uhlir said he's shooting for a $25 million endowment, nearly half of which has already been raised. That should be enough to cover expenses for the next 30 years, until Millennium Park bonds are repaid and garage revenues can be used for the park, he said.