Cubs owner: Wrigley Field renovation will take extra year

Cubs owner says the Wrigley Field $375 million renovation will take an extra year

Chicago Cubs chairman Tom Ricketts said that the $375 million renovation to Wrigley Field will take an extra year to finish.

The project, which will be completed in phases during the next four offseasons, was expected to completed after the 2017 season. 

Construction has already started on the first phase, which will restore the stadium's bleachers. Upcoming phases will see new clubhouses, umpire rooms, press box and bullpens. It will also include a renovation of luxury suites and the building of a new hotel near the park.

“There will be four more years,” Ricketts said, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. “The way we project it now is four more years of construction. A lot of that is subject to how the construction process goes. Once again, with the time horizon we have, making sure we make long-term decisions and not rush the process.”

The Cubs have said that the bleachers would not be ready by the team’s home opener on April 5 against the St. Louis Cardinals.

"Just take this winter for example, and we have found not only the problem with the weather but the water pipes that we had no control over. It could be four years, it could be five. It’s hard to say," Dennis Culloton, a spokesman for Ricketts, said.

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Rooftop owners went back to court this week seeking to stop construction of a right-field video board that they say will block views of games and hurt business.

The team and the rooftop owners have a decade-long revenue-sharing agreement, but team officials say that nothing in that agreement stops them from putting up the video board that would restrict the rooftop views.

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