Landmark Commission Approves Wrigley Rehab -- Mostly

The Wrigley Field renovation project can begin, said the Commission on Chicago Landmarks Thursday, with two notable exceptions:

... a 6,OOO-square foot video scoreboard in left-field and a 1,OOO-square foot see-through sign in right.

The Commission on Chicago Landmarks approved a long-awaited master plan for 45,OOO square foot of "new or existing" Wrigley signage, but withheld approval of the two biggies in the outfield. The vote on those two signs was put off until July 11 in hopes that the Cubs and local Ald. Tom Tunney (44th) can reach a compromise by then.

We can hope; earlier today I wrote about some of Tunney's demands, and now, according to Fran Spielman's article in the Chicago Sun-Times, there are some other things Tunney wants:

On Thursday, Tunney made compromise a bit more difficult by adding a sixth demand: that the Cubs scrap plans to take out a lane of parking on Waveland and a sidewalk on Sheffield to extend the right-and left-field walls outward to provide more interior space for concessions and concourses and minimize the impact of outfield signs on rooftop views.

Here's one place where I tend to agree with Tunney. Especially with the fire station on Waveland and traffic from buses that drop off groups there, taking out a lane on Waveland could cause issues not only on game days, but on days when there's no baseball. Perhaps it might be possible to narrow the parkways on the north side of Waveland and east side of Sheffield and shift the streets north and east to leave two full lanes of traffic going through. Tunney positions this as "a public safety issue" and he has a point. Here's another place where Tunney is actually taking up the needs of his constituents, which is what he should have been doing in the first place.

I've written before that it's time for the mayor, the alderman and Cubs management to sit down in private and hammer out a compromise. Actually, it's way past time. Get it done, please, before July 11.