Chicago Secretly Plans to Sell Assets to Fund 2016 Summer Olympics

By Dennis Byrne
Budget and Tax News

Months after Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley began promising taxpayers they would not foot the bill for the 2016 Olympics, the city secretly drafted a plan to sell public assets to help fund the Games and pledged to cover $500 million in any losses.

City officials revealed the plans and pledge in March, after a visit from Olympics officials. On April 14, the U.S. Olympic Committee selected Chicago, over two-time host city Los Angeles, to represent the U.S. in the bid for the 2016 Olympics and Paralympics. The final choice of host city will be made by the International Olympic Committee in October 2009.

Covering the losses and selling public air rights over near-downtown property were ideas developed behind the scenes in response to the United States Olympic Committee, which has demanded financial assurances that Chicago can pay for the multibillion-dollar event and any cost overruns if the city wins the bid to host the Games.

“We definitely want the government to have skin in this game,” said a committee spokesman, referring to financial backup from a city legendary for cost overruns on big projects, such as the ongoing expansion of O’Hare International Airport and the glitzy lakefront Millennium Park, which opened four years late and hundreds of millions of dollars over budget in 2004.

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