After kicking the tires on seemingly every western suburb over the last year, the Chicago Bears owners are pivoting to focus on building on the city waterfront adjacent to Soldier Field, according to, uh, some people:
Multiple sources in government and close to the team tell me building in the central area is not just a lever to extract better tax terms from Arlington Heights, but the real goal.
If the team get its way under plans that could go public soon, it will get, on the parking lot just south of Soldier Field, a brand-new, state-of-the-art domed stadium, one capable of hosting not only the Bears but Final Four basketball tournaments, Super Bowls and other big events that have tended to skip Chicago for lack of a suitable venue.
The deal would be financed, at least in part, by tapping a unique bonding clause in the law that governs the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority — a clause that expires at the end of this year, informed sources say.
A football stadium large enough to host the Super Bowl, you say? Now that’s crazy talk!
The unnamed-sourceness of it all aside, it seems clear that somebody is talking up a new stadium at the Soldier Field site to Crain’s Chicago Business columnist Greg Hinz (the author of the above), so presumably that somebody has an interest in making it the focus of media attention, if nothing else. Hinz writes that the reasons behind the changeup in plans include: Costs of building a larger development in Arlington Heights have risen, Bears execs are still peeved that Arlington Heights won’t give them a favorable property tax assessment on the site there, team execs have a better relationship with new mayor Brandon Johnson than with old mayor Lori Lightfoot, and new team president Kevin Warren digs cities, all of which could be true or not, it’s hard to say without knowing who’s saying it and what their motivations are.
As for that “unique bonding clause,” this refers to the state legislature in 2021 giving the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority the power to refinance its existing debt on the current White Sox and Bears stadiums and sell new bonds for new construction based on the same hotel-tax revenue it uses to pay that off. Hinz wasn’t entirely clear how this would work — the hotel tax surcharge would still presumably expire at the same time, meaning it would still only generate the same total amount of money, unless the ISFA can use the Robert Moses dodge to extend the tax forever so long as the authority still had outstanding debt. Plus, as Hinz notes, Jerry Reinsdorf is already looking to that hotel tax money to help him build a South Loop stadium for the White Sox, and “it’s not clear whether ISFA funds from an existing 2% tax on Chicago hotel revenues would be sufficient to pay for both projects.”
All is still very much enshrouded in the fog of stadium war, but a couple of things appear clear: First off, if Hinz’s unnamed sources are right, the Bears playing footsie with the suburbs will have turned out to be a lever to extract better terms from Chicago, not the other way around. And second, just because a mayoral candidate talks a good game about spending city money on services rather than development projects doesn’t mean he’ll still think that way once he’s in office — we’ve seen this movie before.
This is the same parking lot that the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art was planning to build on.
““No one benefits from continuing their seemingly unending litigation to protect a parking lot,” said George W. Lucas, founder and chairman of the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art. “The actions initiated by Friends of the Parks and their recent attempts to extract concessions from the city have effectively overridden approvals received from numerous democratically elected bodies of government.”
The location — a parking lot near Soldier Field — was originally selected by Chicago’s Site Selection Task Force in May 2014 and subsequently approved by the City Council, Park District, Plan Commission, Department of Zoning, Illinois General Assembly and the governor. When the city offered McCormick Place East as an alternative to the parking lot, Friends of the Parks announced plans to block consideration of that location as well as any lakefront site or park in Chicago.”
https://lucasmuseum.org/news/lucas-museum-of-narrative-art-withdraws-from-chicago
Yes, assuming they’re really prioritizing the lakefront they must have a strategy they think can appease FOTP.
I would think the idea is something like the new stadium would be built on the parking lot (I wonder if it extends to include McCormick Place East as well) and the current Soldier Field would be demolished (and turned into a parking lot?). Then they can claim they haven’t privatized any additional land, just swapped what’s public and private.
The article claims the existing Soldier Field would be turned mostly into parks, which presumably would be meant to placate the parks advocates.
Thanks for the peak behind the paywall. Trading a parking lot for ‘mostly parks’ would seem to appeal to a group called ‘Friends of the Parks.’
Does Soldier Field not have any sort of landmark status that protects it from being torn down? (But that didn’t protect it from having a giant spaceship dropped on top of it in 2003?)
Its landmark status was stripped after the spaceship was constructed:
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2006/04/22/soldier-field-loses-landmark-status/
And that was only national historic register status anyway, not local landmark status. Detroit’s Tiger Stadium was on the National Register of Historic Landmarks up until the moment that the wrecking ball hit.
Oooh stadium money fight. Fight! Fight! Fight!
One would think that the Bears not being able to get money for a stadium from any other municipality in northeastern Illinois would decrease their negotiating leverage. Politicians love the attention and flattery. Of course they will trip over themselves to give money away.
Man, that Robert Moses was cunning and smart…..
As the first 250 otherwise long, boring pages of The Power Broker make clear, Moses got a terrific early education in finding bureaucratic loopholes.
The Bears now own Arlington Park, the former race track that’s perfectly suited for redevelopment into an NFL stadium and convention hall … yet they continue to hit up Chicago for a stadium handout.
Nothing like giving the Chicago-haters beyond Chicagoland more ammo to return fire with.