The Chicago Bears‘ search for the city that will lavish it with the most public stadium dollars has officially re-entered the throwing-stuff-at-the-wall stage, with fresh suburbs entering the fray. Last week, McCook, Illinois Mayor Terrance Carr and four of his top officials hand-delivered a letter to Bears execs spelling out a stadium proposal in his village west of Chicago. And while Carr wouldn’t say what was in it — no spoilers for Bears execs before they’ve read it! — he did provide some hints:
The proposed site is at the southeast corner of 55th Street and East Avenue, filled in quarry land. … [Carr’s] proposal: The Bears or the village would buy the land. Then the Bears would build a domed, 80,000-seat stadium, which the team would give to the village. In return, Carr would charge the team $1 a year in rent. As a publicly owned stadium, it would be exempt from property taxes.
That would provide the “property tax certainty” that Bears officials say they want — at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars to the McCook treasury, plus the cost of buying the land from its current owners for around $160 million. (Estimates of the cost of a tax break on a similar Arlington Heights stadium came to $700 million, and there the team would still be paying current property tax levels, while in McCook it would pay nothing.) “It’s not a waste of money for me to do this,” said Carr, while also saying, “This is prime real estate. If we don’t get the Bears, I’ll get some development there.” Wouldn’t that seem to indicate it would be a waste of money, if the mayor thinks he could get development without putting up $800-million-plus in subsidies? Unless Carr just means “somebody is eventually sure to snap up my get-out-of-property-taxes-free card,” in which case he’s only leaving out whether a football stadium operating ten days a year would be the best bang for $800 million in public bucks.
Random suburban officials delivering secretive manila envelopes to NFL teams wouldn’t normally be much of a news story, but all the other potential Bears stadium plans remain up in the air: Illinois officials are still in “tell us what we have to put in a tax break bill for you to commit to our state” mode, while officials in Porter County, Indiana continue to balk at a 1% restaurant tax surcharge to help pay for a stadium in Hammond, which is not actually in Porter County.
“I think there’s actually a negligible percentile of Porter County residents that support creating a food-and-beverage tax in our county and putting that money in an envelope and sending it off to Hammond,” [Porter County Commissioner Jim] Biggs told the Indiana Capital Chronicle. “We have our own issues here that need to be addressed.”
Outgoing Porter County Council president Andy Vasquez, who lost his primary for reelection this spring after supporting the Bears stadium tax, added, “Evidently people don’t want it because I’m no longer going to be here after December 31st. I’m not going to be here, so we’ll leave it to the next group.” It sounds increasingly like nothing is going to get decided until next spring, when Indiana’s bill to provide a somewhat hazy amount of money for a Bears stadium expires — if you were ever inclined to take sports team execs’ pronounced deadlines seriously, this might be a good reminder to quit.
Population of McCook is 249 people
This great for them, they don’t have to have the population to pay for and can get all of the benefit of free tickets
I’ve lived here my whole life and I refuse to believe “McCook” is a real place. “Mayor Terrance Carr” is just three of Kevin Warren’s kids in a trenchcoat.
This sounds like Irwindale all over again. IYKYK.
Just.
Pay.
Your.
Taxes.
Manila envelopes? Sheesh. I remember when the notes were hidden in gift baskets with rare cognac and cigars, handed over during a backchannel meeting in Puerto Vallarta paid for out of a slush fund. Then you knew the pol was ready to accept the payola. Manila envelopes from Mayor McCheese is bush league stuff.
Boy, those were the days, Piggy. And Pwerto Vellardo was much nicer back then too.
Still, we have to keep moving forward.
One day at a time. Filling one giant gunny sack (Gucci branded, of course) after another with funds from taxpayers who can never afford tickets anyway.
It’s the price of progress. Well, our progress at least.
I’m still putting my money on Stickney, Illinois. It would give the rare Bears the chance to destroy a second horse track. It’s right off Interstate 55 and already on a CTA bus line. The track wasn’t available when the Bears purchased Arlington, but it’s available now in bankruptcy court. Chicago could probably annex it if needed.
The death of Illinois horse racing is eminent. Hawthorne has a cool history though. Al Capone wanted to buy it, the owners wouldn’t sell. So he built Sportsman’s Park across the street in Cicero. Sportsman’s closed in 1999. Chicago really was a major racing hub for decades- Arlington, Sportsman’s, Balmoral and Hawthorne.
Yes, 5 tracks in 2000. Hawthorne, Arlington, Sportsman’s, Balmoral and Maywood. Now there’s just Hawthorne, barely.
I’m old enough to remember Aurora Downs and Washington Park.
Big no on the Hawthorne site, though if it ceases to exist for racing it will have value.
McCook? Birthplace of the Outlaws Motorcycle Gang?
Yep, it tracks.
If the Bears stadium in Hammond depends on another county raising taxes, a Hammond stadium looks less and less likely. Even Merrilville and Crown Point residents, in Lake County, won’t be thrilled to pay for a stadium in Hammond. Da Bears got themselves into this situation 30 years ago when they turned down McDome. I’m still waiting for a manila envelope to arrive from Kenosha.
“Depends on” is probably strong, but one slice of the funding would be in jeopardy if Porter and Lake counties don’t take part. The bill that Indiana passed is just “make a stadium authority and let it collect money from all over the place and give it to the Bears,” so we don’t really know how much public money is necessary for the Bears to move to Hammond, if they’re seriously considering it at all.
“This is prime real estate. If we don’t get the Bears, I’ll get some development there.”
This elicited a genuine belly laugh from me Mr Mayor
You know, this always seemed more like a Shelbyville thing to me…
North Haverbrook seals up its offer in a linen envelope WITH a wax seal.