The Bears on Friday alienated their greatest cheerleader in Springfield — and left their Chicago accomplice nearly resigned to their departure — by signaling that the workforce could also be giving up on Chicago in favor of constructing a domed stadium in Arlington Heights.
A press release launched by the Bears on Friday merely confirmed the plain: that the workforce has made “vital progress” with the brand new political management in Arlington Heights and it seems to be ahead to persevering with to “work with state and native leaders on making a transformative financial growth undertaking for the area a actuality.”
However the Bears’ failure to even point out the potential for remaining in Chicago — coupled with what they instructed Mayor Brandon Johnson — moved the ball nearer to the location of the previous Arlington Worldwide Racecourse that the workforce spent $197.2 million to buy.
“The Mayor spoke with govt management from the Chicago Bears, who indicated they intend to prioritize the event website situated within the Village of Arlington Heights,” the mayor’s workplace stated in a press release.
However Johnson’s assertion was fast to notice that, “The door stays open within the metropolis of Chicago.”
A former College of Illinois lineman, state Rep. Kam Buckner, D-Chicago, has been one of many few legislators in Springfield prepared to dam and sort out for the Bears, who need state infrastructure assist for Arlington and a large subsidy to stay and construct in Chicago.
However Buckner was downright disgusted by the Bears’ choice to spurn the town and play footsie with Arlington Heights.
“They got here to Springfield a 12 months in the past with a plan that acquired laughed out the door. They had been instructed by the governor to come back again with a plan that made sense. They had been instructed [the same thing] by the speaker. …They had been instructed by the Senate president to workforce up with the White Sox. They’ve not accomplished that,” Buckner stated.
Buckner accused Bears President Kevin Warren of “attempting to marry one metropolis and date the opposite.”
“They have to be trustworthy about … the place they wish to be. They will’t preserve taking part in it on all sides. They’ve damage their popularity as a franchise by flip-flopping. … It’s the boy who cried, ‘Bear.’ “
It was only a 12 months in the past that Johnson and Warren stood collectively at Soldier Area to unveil their shared imaginative and prescient for a lakefront dome — one which has gone nowhere in Springfield, largely as a result of it might require greater than $2 billion in taxpayer subsidies for stadium financing and surrounding infrastructure.
“They placed on this huge extravaganza in Soldier Area about what the brand new stadium was gonna appear to be on the lakefront with out doing the work behind it,” Buckner stated, of a presentation that didn’t embody Gov. JB Pritzker, Home Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch or Senate President Don Harmon.
“Now, right here we’re speaking about Arlington Heights only a 12 months later as the main target,” Buckner stated. “It’s onerous to imagine any of their bulletins or proclamations as a result of they preserve flip-flopping.”
With the Soldier Area deal caught within the mud, the Bears rekindled talks with Arlington Heights about constructing the large stadium-anchored mixed-use growth on the location of the previous racecourse.
Having achieved the property tax certainty it craves with suburban college districts, the Bears have moved on to submitting visitors and financial affect research.
The suburban website gained even higher momentum with the election of Jim Tinaglia as mayor of Arlington Heights. Tinaglia has declared nailing down a stadium cope with the Bears a prime precedence.
Yet one more signal that the Bears had been inching nearer to the northwest suburbs was the sharply worded letter that Warren just lately fired off to Johnson’s new Chicago Park District Supt. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa.
Within the letter, Warren seemed to be nearly scary a struggle by complaining a few lack of communication and enter that had additional soured what has been a contentious landlord-tenant relationship for many years.
Warren was employed by the Bears, largely as a result of he helped ship a brand new domed stadium for the Minnesota Vikings.
On the grand unveiling of the now-failed Soldier Area dome, Warren burdened the significance of breaking floor on a brand new lakefront stadium in 2024.
When that deadline got here and went, the Bears president burdened the crucial of beginning development in 2025. That revised deadline turned much more necessary to satisfy with the skyrocketing price of development gear and supplies tied to President Donald Trump’s on-again-off-again tariffs.
A supply near the Bears stated the workforce’s renewed curiosity in Arlington Heights was not about taking part in one facet in opposition to the opposite.
It’s about dealing with political actuality.
The domed stadium in a parking zone adjoining to Soldier Area faces a probably expensive and prolonged authorized problem from Buddies of the Parks much like the one which price Chicago the Lucas Museum underneath former Mayor Rahm Emanuel.
And a Chicago dome would require the Illinois Sports activities Services Authority to concern bonds retired by an extension of the identical 2% enhance within the Chicago resort tax that bankrolled a $660 million renovation of Soldier Area that received’t be totally repaid till 2032.
The large mixed-use undertaking that will be anchored by a domed stadium in Arlington Heights, against this, doesn’t depend on the stadium authority to concern new debt or lengthen the resort tax enhance.
However the Arlington proposal would require legislative approval to lock in property tax charges, to not point out the infrastructure prices of increasing a two-lane freeway and including a visitors interchange to accommodate tens of 1000’s of followers on sport days.
For Johnson, the political stakes are excessive.
The very last thing he wants at a time when his public approval scores are languishing within the single digits is to be the mayor who misplaced the Bears to Arlington Heights.
Nevertheless it’s wanting extra like a scenario out of Johnson’s management.
Builders of the previous Michael Reese Hospital website seem to have gained no floor in persuading the Bears to contemplate a transfer to their 48.6-acre website—even after releasing dazzling renderings that present a Bronzeville stadium and adjoining mixed-use growth with an amazing garden extending over DuSable Lake Shore Drive all the way in which to Lake Michigan.
Warren has dismissed the Michael Reese website as too slender and too shut for consolation to railroad tracks that bisect the location.
When the Bears threatened to maneuver to Arlington Heights in 1975, then-Mayor Richard J.. Daley threatened to sue the workforce for the precise to make use of “Chicago” in its title.
Each different mayor since then has struggled to unravel the Bears’ stadium dilemma.
Richard M. Daley rebuilt Soldier Area with a ridiculed design likened to a spaceship atop the historic colonnades that price the stadium its landmark standing. And he salvaged that deal after the terrorist assaults of Sept. 11, 2001, with back-loaded borrowing that continues to burden taxpayers to this present day.
Now it seems to be like Johnson could also be holding the ball because the clock runs out. His solely hope seems to be that, till Springfield comes by for the Bears, the door to Chicago stays open.
