By Kathy Bergen | The agency that runs McCormick Place and Navy Pier could look to
corporate America and to the traveling public for additional revenue
streams — if legislators go along with proposals being discussed this week
in Springfield.
Lawmakers are considering letting the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition
Authority, or McPier, sell naming rights to its facilities.
Twenty-five percent of the proceeds would go into an incentive fund for
luring new trade shows, and 75 percent would go toward paying off
facility expansion bonds. An estimate on potential proceeds was
unavailable Tuesday afternoon.
By Julie Wernau
| Politicians and CEOs celebrated the $3 billion merger agreement between United and Continental Airlines this morning at Willis Tower, where United CEO Glenn Tilton told Mayor Richard Daley, “Chicago just got a whole lot more competitive.”
The gathering at Willis Tower, where the merged airline’s operations will be headquartered, included Tilton, Daley, Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn, and Continental CEO Jeff Smisek, as well as members of the Chamber of Commerce and dozens of news crews from across the country.
By Bruce Japsen
| Though a much-touted Chicago appearance today of former Presidents
George W. Bush and Bill Clinton will not be open to the public or the
press at the Biotechnology Industry Organization’s annual meeting, the group
has offered up former Vice President Al Gore for five minutes tomorrow.
BIO said the first “five minutes of the Vice President’s keynote address
will be open” to registered media. Gore’s keynote address is sponsored
by California-based biotech giant Amgen Inc. The fees being paid to Gore for his
appearance are not being disclosed, BIO said.
By Kathy Bergen and Ray Long | The General Assembly’s chief adviser on McCormick Place delivered a
sweeping blueprint for change Friday, calling for privatization of
convention center management and a state-imposed easing of restrictive
and costly show-floor work rules. An interim legislature-appointed
czar would oversee the transformation.
The proposal, if ultimately approved, would lead to the ouster of Juan
Ochoa, chief executive officer of the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition
Authority, the state-city agency known as McPier that owns and operates
McCormick Place and Navy Pier. And it would reduce McPier to a
stripped-down caretaker role, reducing its payroll from 400 to somewhere
around 35 or 40 employees.
From Crain’s Chicago Business | Chicago is still considering the privatization of Midway Airport, city officials told the Federal Aviation Administration
Friday.
From The Wall Street Journal | A Congressional committee faulted the Food and Drug Administration for not pursuing “specific and credible leads” to identify culprits in China during the 2008 crisis involving contaminated imported heparin.
Former White House Social Secretary Desiree Rogers at a reception in March 2010. (Olivier Douliery/Abaca Press/MCT)
By Melissa Harris | Desiree Rogers might stay in Chicago. Or she might move to New York. Or
she might do both.
“I’m still deciding if I’m going to be here or I’m going to be in New
York,” the former White House Social Secretary said during a Chicago
Advertising Federation luncheon Thursday at The Palmer House Hilton.
Although Rogers has been spotted at several events in Chicago since
resigning her White House post in February, she said she was moving out
of Washington, D.C., in early May, and that her job prospects were “wide
open.” After her remarks, she told reporters that ideally, she would
like to split her time between New York and Chicago.
Union members sit in the audience listening as union reps and contractors testify in front of the Joint Committee on the Metropolitan Pier & Exposition Authority in early April of 2010. (Nancy Stone/ Chicago Tribune)
By Kathy Bergen | At a revamped McCormick Place, trade shows and their exhibitors could be
guaranteed a basic set of rights and show-floor work rules aimed at
cutting their costs, and the contractors and union workers who want the
right to work the shows would have to accept those terms.
At least that’s the legal concept behind the recommendations expected to
be issued this week or next by the state legislative committee studying
how to make Chicago’s convention business more competitive with
lower-cost rivals, according to a source close to the deliberations.
Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, left, chats with Glenn Tilton, chairman, president and CEO of UAL Corp. as Jeff Smisek, chairman, president and CEO of Continental Airlines addresses the media at Willis Tower in Chicago on Tuesday. (José M. Osorio/ChicagoTribune)
Former White House Social Secretary Desiree Rogers at a reception in March 2010. (Olivier Douliery/Abaca Press/MCT)
Union members sit in the audience listening as union reps and contractors testify in front of the Joint Committee on the Metropolitan Pier & Exposition Authority in early April of 2010. (Nancy Stone/ Chicago Tribune)