Evanston City Council earlier this week paved the way for Northwestern University to proceed with plans of reconstructing Ryan Field and host concerts at the venue. Those opposed to the project are upset with Mayor Daniel Biss who voted in favor of allowing the university to rebuild the nearly 100-year-old stadium and zoning changes to the district Northwestern’s athletic campus resides on.
His yes votes broke the 4-4 tied votes from council on each issue.
“Our city government sided with powerful insiders and the billionaire donor who controls Northwestern Athletics, against the families who live in this community,” Most Livable City Association President David DeCarlo said. “It’s been an eye-opening experience: We’ve learned that Mayor Biss is just another politician, making backroom deals to advance his career instead of representing the people who elected him.”
Most Livable City Association co-founder Parielle Davis created the Better Than Biss campaign earlier this month to source and assist a candidate to challenge Biss in the 2025 Evanston mayoral election. Biss has previously held offices in the Illinois Senate, Illinois House of Representatives and ran for governor in 2018 where he polled second behind current Governor J.B. Pritzker in the primary.
Biss says his decision to support the project came down to the community benefits agreement, potential for job creation and increasing tax revenue — something the city is hoping to do as council faced a projected deficit
More Top Picks Cookware Set
in the 2024 budgeting process.“Simply put, no town of our size sees many $800 million investments like this,” Biss said. “It will create jobs and generate significant tax and fee revenue for the city.”
Biss applauded the project’s job creation goal of targeting minority and women demographics and partnering with local businesses. The benefits agreement signed by the city and Northwestern states minority and women owned local businesses will encompass at least 35% of the jobs for design and construction of the new stadium. He says these goals will help the small and medium-sized businesses sustain themselves while fostering careers for Evanston residents.
The mayor also said having concerts is a good thing for the community, considering their potential economic impact. He agreed with stadium opponents that the economic development projections supplied by Northwestern University were “speculative” but he values the supportive sentiments of small business owners hoping to see an increased customer base by out-of-town visitors here for games, concerts and other events.
“We’re still in a time of dramatic economic change for places like Evanston. Our pre-pandemic retail economy was reliant on a large daily population of office workers, and like all other business districts in that situation, we have not fully recovered,” Biss said. “As (small business owners) continue to navigate this challenging environment, they anticipate relying on increasing numbers of visitors (and customers) to Evanston.”
The community benefits agreement between the city and university is another reason why Biss said he supported the project. Biss said 15 year long agreement will provide more than $45 million in Good Neighbor Fund donations to be used at the city’s discretion, a minimum $37.5 million in tax revenues and $45 million in donations toward schools, racial equity programs and workforce development projects.
Biss said the deal is a steppingstone in getting Northwestern to contribute more to the city’s financial well-being and hopes it will lead to further partnership.
“Northwestern’s financial support of Evanston — or lack thereof — has been a point of contention for many decades,” Biss said. “This agreement certainly doesn’t put that to rest. But it represents a new chapter in the financial relationship between our two institutions, with a commitment of, if my reading of history is correct, far more support than Northwestern has given Evanston throughout its existence.”
While Biss said he wishes the project’s funds could have gone toward other educational goals, such as reducing tuition costs, he said how the university uses its funds isn’t up to the city.
The decision to approve the Ryan Field project was solely up to whether it would benefit the city or not, according to Biss.
“If I were convinced that they needed the concerts, but I thought the concerts were bad for our community, I’d vote no and oppose the whole project — we shouldn’t accept a bad idea simply because it’s financially necessary for Northwestern,” Biss said. “By the same token, since I concluded that the concerts are a net benefit to Evanston, the right thing for me to do was to support them.”
Corey Schmidt is a freelance reporter with Pioneer Press.