(Sam) Signorelli’s column is clever but not accurate. Its use of Vincentian history to argue against the building of an events center is predicated on a false supposition. DePaul University has not received any tax-incentive financing (TIF) funds from city taxpayers to build this events center. Period.

Rather, the McCormick Convention Center is the recipient of $55 million of the city’s TIF funds so that it could expand its operations and bring more conventions to the city, thereby generating more tax money from convention business and visitors that will, in turn, enable the city to use those generated revenues for a variety of purposes and services.

The hotels and shops that are also part of this large project will generate additional tax revenue. DePaul has no role whatsoever in how either the City or McCormick Place finances their respective portions of the project.

DePaul, on the other hand, is financing its portion by paying – not receiving – $70 million, which will be generated by ticket sales, fundraising and leasing out the naming rights for the arena. We anticipate using the center for 17 men’s home games, 10 women’s games and three dates for graduation. That’s 30 days out of 365, for which we will have paid more than a third of the project’s costs.

On top of that, DePaul will be paying all game-day costs, including rent for our use of the arena facility. Clearly, DePaul is paying the city, not the other way around.

It’s hard to know what St. Vincent would think about all this. The Sorbonne from which he received his degree wasn’t known for collegiate athletics. But I’ll go so far as to guess that he’d at least be pleased that DePaul found a way to pay its contribution to this project without adding a dollar to the students’ tuition or siphoning a dollar away from the university budget.

So many of our students are going to school, working full-time, borrowing funds and relying on whatever support their families can provide. It’s challenging to afford a serious higher education and we are a bit proud that a university with Vincent de Paul’s name above the door kept its priorities in mind as it structured our contribution to this project.

One can reasonably debate whether the City should have employed tax-incentive funds to expand the convention center or used them for other priorities, including education.

That’s a fair public policy question, but that’s the question. And such questions need to be directed to the City.