Lane Tech May Get Mini Wrigley Field Replica

By Anna Deem in News on Jan 30, 2010 10:15PM

The Cubs and the Chicago Park District are in negotiations to build a $2 million replica of Wrigley Field for high school baseball teams to use just two miles west of the actual Wrigley. The replica--complete with ivy-covered brick walls, a Wrigley-style roofline, and a turf field--would be located at Addison and Rockwell near Lane Tech High School. It would also be modeled after a similar Wrigley lookalike that opened in Humboldt Park last year and is used by Little League teams.

The new field would bring about a 10-acre, $15 million expansion of Clark Park--once occupied by the long-closed Riverview Amusement Park--that would include an artificial-turf field for lacrosse, football, and soccer, a renovated boat launch and riverbank, and Chicago's first-ever BMX bike trail and park.

"There really is no first-class, world-class high school baseball stadium on the North Side of the city. And this one is in our backyard," said Mike Lufrano, vice president of community affairs for the Cubs to the Chicago Sun-Times. Lufrano said the new stadium would be home field for Lane Tech and shared with the Roscoe Village community, but it could also be used by Chicago public high school teams from across the city.

Park District Supt. Tim Mitchell said the Clark Park expansion would most likely be completed in phases. "We still have some fund-raising to do to get the whole thing done," Mitchell said to the Sun-Times.