Snuck into one of last week’s economic impact reports for a proposed Chicago Bears stadium in Arlington Heights was an eye-popping number: “To jumpstart the full redevelopment potential of the 326-acre Arlington Park site, the Bears are seeking public funding for $855 million needed for district infrastructure,” wrote consultants HR&A. Among the projects to be funded by the $855 million — the source of which remains unclear, though a tax increment financing district has been suggested — would be, according to the Chicago Tribune’s Robert McCoppin, “entrance and exit ramps from near Route 53 and changes to the adjacent Metra train line.”
Adding a nearly billion-dollar ask in the fine print of a consulting report is a choice, and it was notable enough to catch the attention of the Tribune editorial board, which weighed in today with an editorial asking the question, “Are the Bears’ high-priced demands for ‘infrastructure support’ just another form of subsidy?” Its verdict: Yeah, probably.
This page has supported the principle that government generally bears some responsibility to pay for legitimate infrastructure in order to support development sizable enough to generate a big number of jobs and major economic growth. But at some point, depending on the scale, that infrastructure tab begins to morph into subsidy. At $855 million — and let’s be honest, the cost likely will be higher — we think the Bears already are at that point.
As we have discussed here innumerable times, calculating the public cost of a development project is as much art as science, and one of the biggest judgment calls is on things like infrastructure. The best definition of a “subsidy” is a special dispensation that most people normally wouldn’t get: If you build a house, the local government often covers the cost of building the street out front, the sewer connections, etc. Though not always: In many cases developers will pay development impact fees to cover the public costs of infrastructure.
“Normally,” clearly, is doing a lot of work in that definition. (As is “legitimate” in the Tribune editorial.) Which is why sports developers, and developers in general, will often try to sneak in stuff that is not normal at all, like new highway exits or new train stations, arguing that it’s not really a subsidy because the public will get use out of it. Another way of looking at it, though, is that developers are looking to get land cheap because it has lousy transit access and then get the government to pay to improve it, providing a huge private windfall.
So determining whether something should be counted as a subsidy is less a matter of scale than of whether the Bears are trying to get taxpayers to cover something the team would normally be expected to. And that certainly looks to be the case here, though it would be nice to see an itemized list of the whole $855 million, something that team execs haven’t yet divulged.
And on top of that, of course, there’s the “tax certainty” that the Bears are trying to get as part of a state “megaproject” bill, which would allow them to lock in reduced property taxes on the entire stadium development site. How that would mesh with a TIF district to pay for the infrastructure is, once again, unclear — the whole point of a TIF is to kick back new property taxes from a development to the developer, but if property taxes are capped there won’t be much if anything to kick back — but on a multi-billion-dollar development it could be substantial. At the very least, it’s safe to say that Bears execs intend to ask for well over $1 billion in publicly provided stuff, which is a lot for a project that the team’s own extremely rosy projections say is expected to bring in $69 million a year in new state, county, and local tax revenues, a best-case scenario that would still leave the public losing money if the subsidy total tops $1.1 billion.
All of which was enough to get the Tribune editors to take a rare (for newspaper editorial boards) look into hidden tax subsidies for stadium projects, and props to them for doing so. Either the Trib’s hedge fund goon owners are singularly dedicated to robust economic analysis of development projects, or this is just what happens to media coverage when the local political establishment isn’t on board, you make the call.
And meanwhile, in today’s Chicago Tribune:
‘“The service cuts we may be forced to make beginning in 2026 will be the single-largest transit service cut in the modern history of the Chicago Transit Authority,” Leerhsen told the RTA board.’
With the Bears I kind of feel like I’m dealing with a child who keeps coming up with very elaborate plans and crayon drawings for a proposed unicorn petting zoo in our backyard, and I have to keep turning her away despite being impressed at how much work she’s putting into it.
There are two on-ramps/off-ramps to improve on IL Route 53: Euclid Avenue and Northwest Highway. You’ll also have to take into consideration the increased traffic along Interstates 90 and 290 near their triple-intersection with Route 53, traffic from Interstate 294 exiting on Willow (Palatine) Road, and traffic from Interstate 94 heading to/from Interstate 294. I’ve probably forgotten a few crossroads, but these interstate improvements to handle gametime traffic will spread far beyond Arlington Park.
Other than maybe exit improvements on 53, they’re not going to any of that for (likely) under 20 full stadium events a year.
The Arlington Million races and Secretariat’s appearance drew around 40k, with no one arriving 4-5 hours early to tailgate like they do at Soldier Field. Bears STH live all over the place, they’ll figure it out.