In December 2012 "Crain's Chicago Business" reported that the MBC "now owes less than $3 million on a mortgage held by Pepper the contractor for the State St. facility and has arranged another three years for paying down that debt." (The "Chicago Reader" had previously reported, in November 2009, a mortgage total of $4.79 million "that'll come due in 2011.") More than four and a half years later, in July 2017, "Crain's" revealed that the MBC's mortgage deadline had been pushed back from the end of 2015 to the end of 2017, and that as of August 2016 the museum "owed $2.5 million to Pepper Construction"; furthermore, "the museum posted $53,674 in ticket revenue" in 2015 along with "an operating deficit of $561,331, according to its tax filing for that year, the most recent available." Four weeks later "Crain's" reported that Pepper Construction had granted the MBC another year to pay off its debt, extending the mortgage deadline to December 31, 2018.