Cummins supplied Wrigley Field with three megawatts of standby power during the Chicago Cubs’ great stadium renovation and celebrated a generator designed to protect tens of thousands of fans when the electricity disappeared. Then the United States Department of Justice arrived with another definition of protection: wheelchair seating, sightlines, accessible routes, toilets, parking and the apparently revolutionary proposition that disabled people should be able to use the fucking ballpark too.
Wrigley Field is exactly the sort of customer Cummins likes on a case-study sheet. Historic venue. Major League Baseball. Chicago Cubs. Forty-thousand-plus people under the lights. A giant QSK95 generator sitting somewhere behind the romance making sure that, when the grid decides to throw a curveball, the beer pumps, safety systems and essential infrastructure do not simply shrug and go dark.
Cummins’ own case study says Wrigley needed a compact emergency generator as part of its renovation. The answer was a QSK95 Series set delivering 3 MW at 4,160 volts, with instantaneous switching, a smaller footprint than competing 20-cylinder units and round-the-clock support. Cummins said the project moved from proposal through design, build, testing, installation and start-up within 24 months.
There was even a nice line from Chicago Cubs Senior Director of Facilities and Procurement Patrick Meenan about Cummins having the capability to provide robust backup power for the ballpark and adjacent office building if the power network failed.
Good.
Nobody wants 40,000 baseball fans discovering the emergency plan consists of somebody finding a torch.
The trouble starts when you widen the fucking shot.
Cummins Had The Emergency Power Covered
Cummins was particularly proud of the safety angle.
Its case study said Wrigley Field relied on the QSK95 to help protect approximately 41,460 fans watching Chicago Cubs games. The company described assured backup power as ultimately critical to the safety of supporters and employees.
That is perfectly reasonable. Emergency electricity matters in a stadium. So do lighting, alarms, communications, evacuation systems and every other dull piece of infrastructure nobody notices until it stops working.
The QSK95 was installed in February 2016, while Wrigley Field was undergoing the huge multi-year redevelopment the Cubs called the 1060 Project. Cummins later boasted that its largest diesel engine could provide enough standby electricity to power roughly 150 average-sized homes.
Plenty of juice, then.
Enough to keep Wrigley glowing.
Accessibility turned out to require another power source entirely.
The 1060 Project Gets A Different Case Study
In July 2022, the United States sued the Chicago Cubs and corporate entities associated with Wrigley Field under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The Justice Department was not complaining about a century-old staircase somebody had forgotten behind a hot-dog stand. Its case specifically concerned the modern renovation, rehabilitation, expansion and reconstruction carried out through the 1060 Project.
That distinction matters.
Wrigley opened in 1914. Nobody expects a stadium designed when Woodrow Wilson was president to have emerged from the ground with twenty-first-century accessibility baked into the concrete. Renovation is where the law catches up with the building.
And the Cubs renovated the living shit out of it.
According to the federal complaint, they demolished and rebuilt the bleachers, tore down most of the lower grandstand and reconstructed large portions of the stadium. New clubs appeared. New amenities appeared. Premium spaces appeared. This was not somebody changing three door handles and pleading historic architecture.
It was a major rebuild.
The Justice Department alleged that disabled fans did not receive the same upgrade.
Premium Clubs Up Front. Wheelchairs At The Back.
The allegations had a brutal simplicity.
Federal prosecutors said wheelchair users were not given adequate sightlines compared with standing spectators. They alleged accessible seating had not been properly incorporated into new premium clubs and group areas. Meanwhile, wheelchair seating in general admission sections was allegedly concentrated largely in the last row.
That is some fucking stadium planning.
Spend years rearranging the house, build the expensive rooms, polish the hospitality product, preserve the ivy, modernise the operation and somehow reach the wheelchair question when you are apparently running out of rows.
The federal complaint went further. DOJ alleged counters were too high for wheelchair users at locations including ticket windows, concession stands and condiment stations. It identified protruding objects affecting blind or low-vision patrons, inaccessible restroom elements, problematic parking surfaces and shuttle arrangements that presented accessibility barriers.
This was not one disputed chair.
It was the route through the building.
The seat.
The view.
The toilet.
The food counter.
The car park.
The fucking shuttle.
Cummins had a machine ready to react instantly when the electricity failed. Disabled supporters, according to the United States government, had encountered failures designed into the renovated venue itself.
And Then There Were The Good Seats
One detail from the federal case belongs under stadium lights.
DOJ alleged that Wrigley previously had 19 general-admission wheelchair spaces beneath the press box and directly behind home plate, but that those spaces were eliminated during the redevelopment and moved farther down the first- and third-base lines as part of changes associated with the premium Catalina Club.
Baseball understands position better than most sports.
Behind home plate is not the same product as somewhere down the line. Front row is not back row. Premium is not general admission. Stadium operators spend fortunes pricing those distinctions because everybody in the building understands that a seat is not merely a rectangle of concrete with a number screwed onto it.
Until accessibility enters the conversation, apparently.
Then geography becomes terribly complicated.
The federal case also alleged wheelchair spaces had been omitted from certain premium and group seating areas. The result, according to DOJ, was a renovated stadium where expensive new experiences expanded while disabled supporters did not receive comparable choices throughout the venue.
You do not need a QSK95 to illuminate that contrast.
A desk lamp will fucking do it.
The Cubs Settled. The Stadium Had To Change.
By October 2024, the Cubs and Justice Department had reached a settlement and proposed consent decree. The court subsequently approved the decree in November.
There was no determination of liability on the DOJ allegations. That belongs in the record.
So does everything the Cubs agreed to change.
The settlement required removal and replacement of non-compliant wheelchair spaces and companion seating, with improved views and compliant sightlines. Wheelchair spaces were to be incorporated into premium club areas at the front of the grandstand, providing some front-row wheelchair access there for the first time.
The Cubs also agreed to address protruding objects along circulation routes and ensure specified parking and shuttle arrangements complied with accessibility requirements. Employees and contractors dealing with disabled patrons were to receive training, while the club would report on compliance and remain open to federal inspection during the decree period.
The government therefore did not leave Wrigley holding a press release and a promise to try harder.
There were drawings to alter.
Seats to move.
Routes to fix.
People to train.
Reports to file.
That is what accountability looks like when somebody has jurisdiction.
The Scoreboard Is More Complicated Than One Lawsuit
There is another part of the record worth keeping because TCAP does not need to hide inconvenient innings.
Long-time Cubs supporter David Cerda, who uses a motorised wheelchair, separately brought an ADA case concerning Wrigley’s accessible seating. Following a five-day bench trial, the district court found that the renovated stadium had at least the required 209 qualifying wheelchair-accessible locations for purposes of his claims.
The Seventh Circuit affirmed that result in March 2025.
That does not make the federal consent decree disappear.
In fact, the appellate court itself recorded what had happened in the parallel DOJ case. It noted that the approved agreement required additional front-to-back room at some locations, eight new accessible front-row seats, and further improvements in the Terrace and bleachers. The Cubs told the court those changes would leave Wrigley with 217 qualifying accessible locations under the government’s counting approach.
That is the full scoreboard.
One private claimant did not establish the case he brought. Separately, the federal government sued over broader accessibility issues and obtained a consent decree requiring physical changes.
TCAP can cope with two facts at once.
Apparently this is now a specialist skill.
Cummins Did Not Design The Seats
There is also an obvious boundary here.
Cummins did not design Wrigley Field’s wheelchair seating. TCAP has found no evidence that it decided where disabled supporters sat, designed the premium clubs, positioned restroom equipment or planned shuttle access.
That is not the point of The Generator Files.
Cummins made Wrigley Field a customer case study. It chose the relationship, photographed the stadium, celebrated the installation and sold the project through language about reliability, protection and critical safety.
TCAP simply turns the brochure over.
On one side sits the QSK95: 16 cylinders, 80,000 pounds, three megawatts of emergency diesel power and enough engineering to make sure the show survives an electrical outage.
On the other sits a federal civil-rights case arising from the stadium redevelopment happening around it.
That relationship does not make Cummins responsible for the Cubs’ accessibility decisions.
It does make the missing half of the customer story worth reading.
Safety Means More Than Keeping The Scoreboard On
Today, Wrigley Field publishes a detailed accessibility guide. The Cubs advertise wheelchair services, accessible seating and other facilities, and the ballpark has also become a Certified Autism Center.
Good.
Improvement is supposed to be the fucking objective.
But none of that makes the earlier record evaporate. The Generator Files exists precisely because corporate case studies freeze customers at the flattering moment: installation complete, executive quoted, equipment gleaming, problem solved.
Cummins saw Wrigley Field and wrote about emergency power.
The Justice Department saw Wrigley Field and wrote about equal access.
One story worried about what happened if the electricity went out.
The other worried about where wheelchair users could sit when it stayed on.
That is a much better definition of Customer Corner.
Cummins could deliver three megawatts in an instant.
Getting disabled fans better seats took federal litigation.
Lee Thompson – Founder, The Cummins Accountability Project
Sources
- Cummins – QSK95 Series Generator Sets : Wrigley Field Case Study
- Cummins – Wrigley Field Depends On Cummins For Power Protection
- Cummins – Cummins Generates Power For Big Time Sports Stadiums
- U.S. Department Of Justice – Lawsuit Against Chicago Cubs Over Wrigley Field ADA Accessibility
- U.S. Department Of Justice – Chicago Cubs Wrigley Field ADA Settlement And Consent Decree
- U.S. Court Of Appeals For The Seventh Circuit – David Cerda v Chicago Cubs Baseball Club
- Chicago Cubs – Wrigley Field Accessibility Guide