It’s been a billion degrees for a billion days here (Ed. Note: all figures approximate) and I don’t have the energy to do a whole analysis of Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s three different proposals for renovating Soldier Field for the Chicago Bears, at a cost of $900 million to $2.2 billion. Can we just look at some of the pretty pictures (Ed. Note: all aesthetic judgments approximate) from Lightfoot’s new Re-Imagine Soldier Field website instead? I think I can manage that this morning:
That’s a lovely twilight view of the Chicago skyline! And there’s Soldier Field in the mid-foreground, with some kind of roof on it, held up by … stuff. Honestly, it’s not really clear what’s going on here, though if the intent is to portray Lightfoot’s plans as “the same old Soldier Field, only marginally less ugly, and costing a billion or two dollars,” then mission accomplished.
And here’s a football game! It’s hard to tell exactly what’s going on in the game since the video boards are only informing fans that “CHICAGO DOME,” but it’s recognizably the current Soldier Field, sorta, only with one of those clear-ish plastic roofs like the Los Angeles Rams have.
Now we’re getting into some real vaportecture, with young people in casual partywear standing around at rooftop bars while watching a giant TV screen showing the words “GAME LIVE” instead of the actual game live. From the position of the Field Museum in the background, this would apparently be the new north end of Soldier Field, where you could pay good money to go to the game and not watch the game.
And finally, here’s a view of the redone stadium from the north, showing all those rooftop bars and the roof itself, which we now see is being supported by … yeah, still no idea. There are those big vertical structures at the four corners of the stadium, and some kind of trusses running the length of it, but whether the roof is hanging off of that or held up by the seating bowl itself is still a mystery. Maybe that $2.2 billion price tag is to invent some new field of physics that involves different gravity? All the kids are doing it!
There’s probably some engineering explanation for all this, but honestly, it doesn’t much matter since 1) Bears execs insist they have no interest in any of this, 2) it’s not clear why they would, since a roof wouldn’t do a whole lot for their bottom line, and 3) none of this stuff ends up looking like the original renderings anyway. Lightfoot, meanwhile, declined to say how any of this would be paid for, saying, “I don’t want to speculate and get ahead of ourselves, but we believe in collaboration and shared value and investment.” And don’t forget peanut butter!
The roof is being designed by the same firm that is giving us the promised open stadium air conditioning for the Qatar World Cup.
How would a clear roof work in a place that gets snow?
Do you mean as far as letting natural light in or standing up to the snow load or?
I’m familiar with a couple of translucent (but not clear) roofed facilities… they let light in in winter just fine. That said, the nature of the structure also required that snow not be allowed to build up indefinitely on the roof panels. I would assume something similar will be contemplated here and that roof snow removal will be a regular feature.
Given Lightfoot’s casual approach to the project thus far (at least as regards the technical side…), maybe we shouldn’t be assuming ‘details’ are really the council’s thing.
A little of both. I was wondering about both the lighting if it was covered with snow but the snow removal. I remember the Vikings had to once raise the temperature for a playoff game to 84 degrees in order to melt the snow off the roof of the Metrodome
I remember that too. Other facilities with the PTFE dome had workers going up to shovel snow off (they were tethered to anchor points), in one case I recall the snow was so heavy they sent workers up there with hot water hoses to melt the snow… which, um, didn’t work. The water cooled down faster than it could run off and, well, you can probably guess the rest…
As a Chicago taxpayer, I am going to get screwed regardless of what happens. The Bears don’t even want this. But they get it anyway? The cheapest version if still more expensive than building a new stadium.
“collaboration and shared value and investment” cost taxpayers in New York a billion bucks plus. Yes, Anthony, as a Chicago taxpayer, you are screwed. But the value to you is truly… Immeasurable.
This jerk-off team and their jerk-off ownership can jerk-off to the jerk-off capital of the jerk-off suburbs – Arlington Heights. I’m enjoying watching Lightfoot grovel pointlessly though. This SHOULDN’T be the reason she’s a one-term mayor, but it may be anyway.
What would make Lori Lightfoot a one-term mayor will be her inability to control the racist and trigger-happy Chicago Police Department. Ordinary people understand that — the Jockocracy doesn’t.
Interesting. Dumb, but interesting.
The McCaskeys have stated that they are not considering any possible future at the current location and that they believe they are ‘contractually required’ to exhaust all possibilities in Arlington Heights before considering anything else as part of their land purchase agreement.
I mean, I haven’t read it obviously, so perhaps they are right. However they do have some sort of contractual obligation at their present location (IIRC, the lease break fee is $84m to leave early… which if I were the city I would be trying to get them to do ASAP).
For Chicago residents:
Do the Bears and their 10 games a year actually bring much business to the lakefront (apart from in stadium)? We keep hearing how nothing else ever happens… so, honestly, if they were to move to Arlington Heights (and I’m not conceding that this is going to happen or even likely), what would the loss (actual, not theoretical or ‘perceived’ loss) be to the city itself?
They’ll still be the Chicago Bears. It’s just that taxpayers in an adjacent suburb will likely be footing more (or maybe most?) of the bill for their new stadium and commercial developments. Isn’t that a win for taxpayers in other parts of Chicago?
It seems impossible to imagine that the Bears bring enough new revenue to the lakefront to even pay for the last renovation, much less what Lightfoot is proposing going forward.