White Way Sign, a century-old company behind some of the most historic signs in Chicago, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
The family-owned company has had a hand in everything from the landmark Chicago Theatre and Wrigley Field marquees to the U.S. Cellular Field and United Center scoreboards, iconic signage that has helped define the city’s image and evolution.
The company moved from Chicago to Mount Prospect in 2007, and recently has focused more on maintenance than manufacturing after divesting its North Clybourn Avenue facility. The filing Wednesday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Chicago lists less than $10 million in assets and up to $50 million in liabilities.
“We expect to survive this,” said Jim Morgan, a Chicago bankruptcy attorney representing White Way. “We just need to retool and we will continue to provide the same service.”
White Way Sign was founded in 1916 by Thomas Flannery, an Irish immigrant who started the company by servicing electric signs. It made its mark by fabricating and maintaining marquees for such theaters as the Chicago Theatre and the Oriental Theatre. The company took its name from the New York theater district, which was known as the Great White Way for its brightly lighted marquees.
The company has been owned by the Flannery family since its inception, with Robert Flannery Jr., grandson of the founder, now president.
Morgan said the company, which survived the Great Depression, spiraled into bankruptcy after the Great Recession, where a slowdown in new construction and the consolidation of banks — a major category for White Way — were key factors. Beyond new installations, the loss of maintenance contracts with existing customers substantially cut into revenues.
“It’s a very economy-dependent industry,” Morgan said. “They managed to hold out this long, but it just became overwhelming.”
The largest unsecured creditor is the Sheet Metal Workers’ National Pension Fund, which is owed nearly $858,000. Other unsecured creditors include Boston-based Cabot Industrial Value Fund, which is owed about $376,000 for lease obligations, and American Opto Plus LED, a California LED manufacturer, which is owed nearly $264,000, according to the filing.
Eric Wu, general manager of American Opto Plus, said his company has made most of the custom LED modules for White Way video boards over the past decade, but saw signs of trouble in recent years.
“We had a long history of doing business with them,” Wu said. “In the last three to five years, they started to have financial problems.”
The pension liability is associated with the closing of its manufacturing facility, while the overdue rent is for its current 34,000-square-foot facility in Mount Prospect, Morgan said.
The company got into the sports business in a big way in 1980, installing the old Comiskey exploding scoreboard for the White Sox. More recently, it fabricated and installed the current video scoreboard at U.S. Cellular Field.
White Way has made video scoreboards for a number of other stadiums, including the United Center and Madison Square Garden, as well as for smaller sports venues, such as the video scoreboard for Barrington High School, which was installed in 2008.
In addition to sports venues and banks, other clients include casinos, car dealers, hotels, shopping centers and restaurants. White Way has about 20 employees.
Its most famous work dates to its earliest days, when White Way maintained a plethora of movie theater marquees beginning in the 1920s, including the Chicago Theatre sign. While White Way did not build the original Chicago Theatre sign, it fabricated and installed the most recent version of the canopy within the past decade, according to the company.
The Chicago Theatre was designated a Chicago landmark in 1983 by the Chicago Landmarks Commission, which called the upright marquee the “unofficial emblem” of the city.
In 2004, the commission also designated the red Wrigley Field marquee and scoreboard, built in the 1930s, as local landmarks. White Way did not make the original marquee, but updated it with an electronic message sign. Likewise, the company didn’t erect the manually operated center field scoreboard at Wrigley Field, but it provided the electronic message sign below it.
White Way is not involved in the $575 million renovation of Wrigley Field, which will include a new 4,000-square-foot video scoreboard in left field, but it will continue to maintain the marquee and other stadium signs, Morgan said.
Twitter @RobertChannick
