Midwestern Mugwump (mw)2

Had to See It Coming

What's the over/under for the number of minutes into the meeting to discuss the idea of selling a day's naming rights to the FleetCenter for this idea coming up - "Lawyer Tries to Name Boston Arena for Yankee Star."

I'd put it at 10 minutes - it's no later than the fourth question.  Right after - "Is it legal," "How much can we get" and "Can we stop obscene language."  And probably before any defamation concerns - which, given that it's Boston, could mean derogatory remarks about their own players as much as opposing players. 

I can't imagine there are actually legal questions here - there must be an absolute right to deny a name - just a question of - "Do we want to turn down the money?" (YES) and "Will we look petty in doing so?" (Sort of).

Sports Illustrated updates with the following quotes:

Arena officials have reserved the right to approve or reject any winning bid. . . "That name may not be as bad as A-Rod," Delaney [the owner's spokesman] said, referring to Yankee third baseman Alex Rodriquez, "but it's still considered obscene."

Oak Park - Best Neighborhood?

The Project for Public Spaces came out with a Best Neighborhoods in North America list that included (at #13) the humble Village of Oak Park (actually, just a section of Lake Street).  I'll admit, I was both surprised and amused.  The picture makes it look all bright and sunny and filled with historical architecture.  Its always seemed a little rundown to me with an odd mixture of historical and mid-70s architecture filled with cheap chain stores (think Payless - though I don't think its actually there) and empty (or recently torn down buildings).  It seems like a place with so much potential, but that can't quite seem to get there.  But I'm cheering for it.

Evidently the street has had something of an up and down history, being turned into a pedestrian mall in the 1970s and then taken out of that failed state around 10 years ago (though a side street still is a pedestrian mall).  Its frankly kind of strange and since I don't live nearby, I don't get to that section of the village very often.  I was there on Saturday, however, as my son and I went (he for his first paid haircut) to get haircuts at a chain hair salon and then to a shop on the ped mall to share a pastry.  My own favorite section of the village is at Lake and Oak Park Avenue, where there are almost 10 small restaurants, a cheap deli, and a place to get ice cream all within an easy walk and a park across the street.  But there isn't (much) street seating for any of the restaurants, so I wonder if it gets overlooked.

What amused me was the idea of Oak Park as great urban space.  Its constantly fumbling around trying to figure out what to do with the commercial property (which the municipal government is usually buying) and its urban plan, apparently to the great expense of the taxpayers.  A Sun Times financial columnist sums up our latest deal this way:

Here's a deal I first wrote about two years ago, and now it's finally getting approved, which gives you an idea about the planning process in the host community. The People's Republic of Oak Park, home to some of the highest property taxes on earth, last week OK'd Whiteco Residential LLC's plan for an apartment tower at the southeast corner of Harlem and Ontario. It'll be 14 stories, 200 units, more than 500 parking spaces and include a Trader Joe's grocery. It's smaller in both commercial and residential terms than the original plan. But the developer originally asked for a $2 million subsidy. To build less, the developer is getting around $8.5 million. So the taxing agencies get less benefit with a greater subsidy payment. In Oak Park, that's called progress.

Sounds about right to me.  Though I'm a Republican, I don't like corporate give-aways, this is an ongoing annoyance.  Give away some money if you must or a zoning ordinance if you have to, but both/and?  I know there's more to the deal than that, but after 2 years I haven't been able to figure it out.

Fuller Steps Down at Habitat

CT points to an article in the Washington Times regarding the resignation of Millard Fuller from Habitat For Humanity - an organization I first heard of in college and worked with every (almost) Saturday for two years.  Whatever construction skills I have, I learned there (and for which they shouldn't be blamed).  According to the article, there are accusations (again) of sexual harrassment.  It's sad.

The article quotes Fuller as being concerned about the over-institutionalization of the ministry, stating: 

"The danger, I fear, is that Habitat for Humanity will become a bureaucracy," he wrote. "If we lose the 'movement mentality,' we will not go out of existence, but we will stagnate and become 'just another nonprofit' doing good work across the country and around the world."

When I was working for them, they were almost the opposite of that - it seemed to be run by a bunch of philosophy majors (mostly from North Park - we were the first Wheaton group to help out) with a few construction skills and a lot of heart.  But they did good work and I learned a lot, construction skills notwithstanding.  Given the location intensive and labor intensive nature of the work, it seems like a perfect ministry to remain decentralized.  At the same time, I'll admit that it's easier to send checks to the national organization than it is to clear away a Saturday morning and pound nails. 

Putting "Conserve" Back in Conservative

The Sun-Times has an article on a new police station in the Morgan Park area of the city - "Environmentalists might feel at home in new police station." Its built with green architecture principles, as will be all future police stations - it could have 'greener,' except for a few of the basic security needs - HA - you don't say. Good article - good concepts - my only complaints are three:

First, it evidently cost $20.5 million - but the comparisons to non-green costs were based on a federal government study (2.5% more) and not, say, on the last police station that the city constructed. How much did it cost and how does it compare in terms of land acquisition, total square footage, and number of cells (or whatever the proper metrics are for measuring size/capacity of police stations)?

Second, no on-line pictures - hey, how hard is this?

Third, the story should have led with something like - "Next time environmentalists get busted for protesting, they should ask to go to the Morgan Park station." HA.

In related news, I got my composter this weekend and spent the 15 minutes setting it up. Thus the 'clever' title. Why am I, perhaps the most conservative person on the block, one of few people with a composter and the smaller capacity garbage container?

Baseball and Cities

ESPN has an article about the impending move of the Montreal Expos. Largely, I don't have opinions except that I generally don't like massive public subsidies of private enterprise with limited exceptions.

Irritating to me are the demands that the city of Washington pony up $13 million dollars to renovate RFK stadium. What's that all about - isn't that the price of an underperforming 2nd baseman? Pay it yourself with the receipts from the new owners.

There is also the demand that the district build a new stadium for around $400 million. Now, ultimately this is a decision for D.C. - despite its subsidy by the American taxpayers, I'm personally not so bothered. But that's a lot of money for MLB to be demanding of a broke municipality. I understand that it wil happen, but I think its too bad from the point of view of the city. After all, at the same time, they will be selling the franchise for substantially more than they paid for it (assuming the initial purchase price isn't tied to the re-location price). Further, if there are multiple bidding parties (Fred Malek and Stan Kasten are both reportedly interested in putting together bids - both of which have substantial prior involvement in MLB and are therefore not naive to the economic realities), the economics wouldn't necessarily demand it (though the competition between cities clearly allow for it). MLB - Rich players and richer owners stealing money from urban schools.

Squirrel Blogging

No, dear readers, I am not kidding. Squirrel Blogging - but it won't be a regular feature of (mw)2, don't worry.

The South Bend Tribune has an interesting (yes, really) article on the different types of storing habits of different types of squirrels - with a hilarious photo of a fox squirrel just chilling out. Check it out here.

When we were at Notre Dame we had a bird feeder in our backyard. We loved the birds, but grew tired of the squirrels, who would eat all of the seed. So we put up a squirrel guard. One daring young creature decided to test the contraption and almost fell off. He quickly scrambled back up to the branch and threw himself (okay, maybe there's a little dramatic license in there) down with all four paws gripping the branch - much like our friend in the article, though more desperate and less non-chalant. Pretty funny - good times.

Laundry and Paint

Our washer broke down and I had to do a couple of loads of laundry at the laundromat before our new one is delivered on Monday. What a pain.

Its been almost five years since I have had to take the laundry out of the house to wash it (prior to our house, it was at least in our building). I had forgotten what annoying it was. And it cost me $2 per load. At that rate we will easily pay for the new washer (we were told by the guy who came to fix the old one - he said it wasn't worth it - to buy a model without any electronics - just dials). So there I was on the floor trying to treat stains and jam the clothes (all kids clothes) into the front loading washing.

While it was loading I took some old cans of paint to the Oak Park public works department paint exchange where I learned this interesting fact - dry paint can be disposed of in a landfill (even in liberal Oak Park).

So, if you don't have very much left and you aren't going to re-use it - leave the top off the can, let it dry, and then throw it away with the rest of your garbage - without any danger or lurking guilt. Hmm, I didn't know that.

There you go, another public service announcement.

Stay on Topic, Stay on Topic

Several of you might have lauged at the oblique Star Wars reference. For the rest of you - keep reading - it may get better.

While the Brothers Zimmer and I were discussing Green Architecture, Christianity Today decides to join the bandwagon with an editorial about Global Warming. I'm glad they could join us. ;-)

To prove that I'm not just, as a friend described me, "another Notre Dame-loving, suburb dwelling, Republican lawyer" (which I think should be followed by "not that there's anything wrong with that") - I'll both agree with CT - America, and particularly its Christians need to take a leadership role in environmental stewardship and criticize our current president for failing to do so adequately (though screaming Kyoto at the top of one's lungs strikes me as a red herring).

Further, I'll cite to this interesting article that appeared in CNN last October that describes low cost solar cells. The CNN piece quotes the company (ST Microelectronics) president as claiming that they hope to have a prototype by the end of this year - I wonder where they are in this process - no sign on their webpage, though there was this press release about their own energy consumption habits.

But wait, there's more

More Green Arch

I'm grateful to John and Andrew for the response, because while I'm interested in the topic, I bring only a lawyer's skill set and not an engineer or economist's skill set to the questions. I'm quite sympathetic, but my legal training encourages me to ask the hard questions of yourself, so that when someone else does, you have a decent answer. So I'm asking the questions from the perspective of someone who might be advising a lender to a green project (the lender's interest centering on the ability of the borrower to extract sufficient income to pay the loan) or to a developer, potential landlord, whose concern would be whether increased building costs could be realized in a combination of rent payments and reduced costs. This isn't the sole perspective (I'm sympathetic to the others and deeply appreciate the reductiveness of economic analysis), but these are the tools I bring to the conversation.

As a side note, I saw on the L today that I missed a several month long exhibit at the Chicago Architecture Foundation on this topic - this is the Big and Green exhibit page. D'oh. Its got lots of cool links.

So if the building costs run between 2-7% (the higher number stemming from this now defunct NYTimes article), with several percentage points being within the margin of construction estimation error, how close might a project be to some form of tipping point regarding non-profitability, particularly when you factor in the cost of increased borrowing?

I'll admit that I'm also skeptical of the necessary extrapolations required in estimating savings from reduced absenteeism, etc. I would be inclined to advise a potential client (either a potential tenant in a green building or a developer) to discount those numbers pretty heavily with a preference for longevity and energy savings until those other elements could be more substantially supported. I'll admit that this may be unfair, but it seems the more conservative way to go.

So who might be a target client?

Green Rant

John Zimmer at Letters has a rant about Green Architecture. That would a unfair characterization, if it hadn't been self-supplied.

I agree with him about how fascinating it is and how I'd like to see it work, so I'm hoping he and his brother (newly certified as a LEED architect) can supply some interesting insight - because I don't know a darn thing about this kind of thing except - "Gee, it sounds really cool - can the economics work?"

Luckily for all of us, the brothers Zimmer are more informed. So, I'll ask the question - "It sounds really cool, how sound are the economics? And if they don't work, can the other benefits outweigh the economic limitations?"

See also this more substantive, link filled post about Green Architecture.