Bears reveal plans for $4.7 billion domed lakefront stadium development

The Bears finally opened the playbook Wednesday on a $4.7 billion project to put a fixed-roof domed stadium on a lakefront site that has only recently become their primary focus.

Just a day before they’re expected to use the first pick in the NFL draft to select quarterback Caleb Williams, the Bears held a news conference at Soldier Field to unveil plans for the stadium and the surrounding area, which would include improved access to the lake and Museum Campus — and a deconstructed Soldier Field, with landscaped paths and softball and baseball diamonds between the colonnades, where the Bears once roamed.

“This is not an easy project, but Chicago doesn’t like it easy. We like to do the difficult things … the things that resonate with people for generations to come,” Bears President Kevin Warren told a news conference Wednesday afternoon at Soldier Field.

On that, state legislative leaders appear to agree, with the leaders of the Illinois House and Senate joining Gov. J.B. Pritzker in expressing skepticism of success in Springfield — especially during the current legislative session.

Warren made the case that their vision for the new stadium, Soldier Field and the overall Museum Campus — “the most attractive footprint in the world,” he called it — is consistent with that of Daniel Burnham, the famed architect and urban planner who laid out a vision for Chicago and the lakefront in 1909.

The cost of just the stadium would be $3.2 billion, with that $2 billion in private investment the Bears previously have announced, plus a $300 million loan from the NFL, and $900 million in 40-year bonds issued by the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority. The existing debt from Soldier Field would be refinanced and rolled into 40-year payback plan.

Overall, with the envisioned hotel, bars and restaurants — and taxpayer-backed infrastructure improvements needed to make the stadium and Museum Campus more accessible — the tally of the entire project could reach $4.7 billion.

As outlined Wednesday, those infrastructure expenses could be done in phases. However, a minimum of $325 million in public improvements would be absolutely necessary for the stadium to open, according to the team.

Among the questions that Wednesday’s news conference started to answer is how the team plans to fill that $1.5 billion construction funding gap. They also unveiled renderings showing how would deconstruct much of Soldier Field while preserving the historic colonnades and other original aspects of the stadium, which was dedicated as a war memorial.

On Wednesday, at an unrelated news conference after the plan was unveiled, Gov. J.B. Pritzker said he was not invited to the event, and already had scheduled his day when it was announced.

He has been critical of early reports the Bears would ask for taxpayer assistance, and appeared to remain so Wednesday.

“I’m highly skeptical of the proposal that’s been made and I believe strongly that this is not a high priority for legislators and certainly not for me, when I compare it to all the other things,” he said at a news conference in Maywood. “I’m a Bears fan. I want to be clear and I want them to win and I want them to have a great place to play. But I just think that the taxpayers dollars need to be protected. I think it’s my job to be a good steward of those dollars.”

Earlier Wednesday, he had noted that even on-field success has not helped in other cities.

“Maybe one lesson that can be learned just from the last few years is stadium deals, and taxpayers putting money forward for stadium deals, [are] not particularly popular around the country. Take note that the winner of the Super Bowl this year, the team went out to try to get the stadium financed by the public and it was rejected by the public in a place where the Super Bowl champions reside. And I think this is a recognition that these are private businesses. That the owners of these private businesses need to put a lot more forward … [to] have their dreams fulfilled and not just rely upon the taxpayers of Illinois to make that happen for them.”

Illinois Senate President Don Harmon, D-Oak Park, issued a statement showing he, like Pritzker, was cautious at best.

“At first glance, more than $2 billion in private funding is better than zero and a more credible opening offer, he said. “But there’s an obvious, substantial gap remaining, and I echo the governor’s skepticism.”

House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch (D-Chicago) also sounded less than optimistic on Wednesday about the chances of any state help during the current legislative session.

“I want to say to you publicly what I said to Kevin Warren privately last week. If we were to put this issue on the board for a vote right now, it would fail, and it would fail miserably. There’s no environment for something like this today. Now, in Springfield, environments change. Will that environment change within the next 30 days? I think that’s highly unlikely. You know, I think there’s a whole lot of Chicago Bears fans in the General Assembly, but our priorities are pretty clear. And we, starting next week, have one month to pass another balanced budget. … Taking care of working families across the state is a top priority for us right now.”

After that?

“People’s minds can be convinced. There’s gonna be a lot of conversations. But as the governor noted, there’s three teams in Chicago, there’s the Bears, the White Sox and the Chicago Red Stars. They’re all wanting a share of this pot. And I think we have to seriously have those conversations as well. … And so I think what’s happening today is really the kickoff, no pun intended, of some conversations to be had.”

Warren, however, responding to questions at the Wednesday news conference, said the need is urgent, and “the time is now.”

Approval in May, he said, was crucial to get construction started as soon as possible.

Chicagoan Marc Ganis, who has advised numerous NFL teams on stadium financing, on Tuesday said the timing of Warren’s stadium reveal was “brilliant.”

“The national and international focus of the sports world on Thursday night is going to be on the NFL draft and, in particular, the No. 1 draft pick — and the Bears own the No. 1 pick. By announcing the stadium plan the day before, it will get a tremendous amount of attention locally and also nationally and internationally,” Ganis said Tuesday.

“Tens of millions of people around the country are going to see the renderings and the plans for the new stadium. The attention that it will receive will be dramatic — all because they have the No. 1 pick. It wouldn’t be the same if they had the No. 2 pick,” Ganis added.

“If everything goes as hoped,” he said, April 24 and April 25 will become “seminal dates” in Bears history — “taking the quarterback that they hope will be their franchise star leading them to Super Bowls for many years to come, and the stadium that will be the first that the team will ever have built and designed themselves.”

Mayor Brandon Johnson followed Warren to the microphone, praising the team for remaining “the Chicago Bears” and committing to stay in the city, not moving to Arlington Heights, where the team just last year closed on the purchase of the now-demolished Arlington International Racecourse and announced plans for a stadium complex there.

Johnson emphasized that the financing plan does not call for “implementing any new taxes on the residents of the city of Chicago.”

Johnson already had cracked the door open to a potential public subsidy before Wednesday — not just to help the Bears, but also to help the White Sox, who have their own plans for a new ballpark — at the vacant South Loop parcel known as “the 78.”

Johnson’s decision to attend Wednesday’s Soldier Field unveiling could be a sign he’s prepared to put the city’s money where his mouth is, even if progressive voters who helped put him in office question his spending priorities.

“So far, it hasn’t cost him anything. This has been an easy support of a local business that is very popular. … He’s been saying the right things. Good relationship. Want to keep the Bears in [Chicago], but there has to be public benefit,” Ganis said.

“The relationship with the Bears — it was toxic while [Lori] Lightfoot was mayor. And it has significantly improved” under Johnson.

“A year ago, Kevin was not the president of the Bears and I was not the mayor of Chicago — and the Bears were as good as gone,” Johnson said at the Wednesday news conference, calling the announcement “truly a win for the city of Chicago.”

Chicago Federation of Labor President Bob Reiter was in Washington Wednesday and said he had not yet been briefed on specifics of the plan.

But, he sure sounds ready to start lobbying labor’s allies in Springfield.

“The prospect of building a stadium is exciting. I’d like to build two stadiums,” Reiter told the Sun-Times.

“Modernizing our professional sports infrastructure — what that could mean for the people who work in the stadiums. Our members who play on the field. Our members who work in the stands. The members who will build the structures and what that could mean for generational wealth that could come and bring to people from or neighborhoods who would have a shot at those jobs.”

Bears diagram their play

Last month, the Bears held their first meeting with the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority, the state agency they want to help finance their lakefront dome.

Frank Bilecki, that agency’s executive director, said Warren was eyeing the same portion of the city’s hotel tax the White Sox hope to use to build a new, $1.5 billion stadium in the South Loop. Sources tell the Sun-Times the Bears’ plan for 40-year bonds leaves enough expected hotel tax revenue to allow Sports Facilities Authority to issue $1 billion in bonds to back a Sox stadium.

Plans outlined in that meeting by the Bears included “a potential hotel, but not a specific location for the hotel,” Bilecki said. “There were playing fields for other sports and activities in the area where Soldier Field is now … Restaurants and bars were also mentioned, depending on financing. There was a Hall of Fame area as well,” Bilecki told the Sun-Times after that meeting.

The bigger the hotel and entertainment district surrounding a lakefront stadium, the more tax revenue it will generate to help finance the project. But there’s a catch. The more the team proposes to build on the lakefront, the bigger the legal target for Friends of the Parks, the advocacy group that has long served as the lakefront’s primary protector.

Friends of the Parks, which Ganis called “very formidable and very committed,” is a force to be reckoned with. Just ask movie mogul George Lucas, who once hoped to build his interactive museum on the same Soldier Field parking lot the Bears now covet.

“While I have lived here — and it’s been decades — it’s hard to think of anything that’s been built east of Lake Shore Drive that impacted the Lakefront Protection Ordinance other than the renovation of Soldier Field and the parking lot next to it,” Ganis said.

“When Friends of the Parks was able to block a fully funded museum from being built east of Lake Shore Drive, it said a lot about their influence and their commitment.”

Bye, bye, Arlington Heights?

The Bears apparently have abandoned plans to build a domed stadium on the 326-acre site of the old Arlington International Racecourse — after spending $197.2 million to acquire it. The team expressed disappointment at failing to secure a large enough property tax break on that land. Local school districts opposed a lower assessment, saying it would shortchange students.

Warren on Wednesday reiterated that the team’s focus has shifted to the lake, and away from that northwest suburban site.

“None of this would be an issue if the taxing bodies in Arlington Heights didn’t get greedy,” Ganis said.

With the spring legislative session entering a critical juncture, the Bears and Sox have intensified negotiations to hammer out a joint financing package to divide the bonding capacity and plug funding gaps.

No increase is contemplated in the hotel room tax. Chicago’s already is among the nation’s highest, Bilecki has said.

But both teams, he added, also understand that revenue from that tax can’t fund two new stadiums and also pay off old stadium debts — “which, I assume, is part of the ongoing discussion between the teams. That’s up to them to try and figure out … It’s the million-dollar question.”

That outstanding debt includes the bonds used to pay for the 2003 Soldier Field renovation. Those bonds also have balloon payments at the end; payments go from $56.7 million this year to a final payment of $90.5 million in 2032.

Another $50 million in outstanding bonds issued by Bilecki’s agency was used to fund renovations to Guaranteed Rate Field, where the White Sox play now. Those bonds won’t be retired until 2029, when the baseball team’s lease expires.

Whenever hotel tax revenue fails to grow at 5.5% a year, Chicago taxpayers must make up the difference. That’s happened three times, and twice in the last three years. The biggest deficit was $27.3 million in 2022.

The Sox financing plan for the South Loop parcel calls for all $589.1 million — including $375 million in principal and $214 million in interest — to be paid off by a 35-to-40-year extension of IFSA bonds, also backed by the hotel tax.

The Sox also hope to create a “sales tax overlay district” that would require the city, state and county to forfeit a portion of sales tax revenue generated within the boundaries of “the 78.” That revenue would primarily serve as a backup to guarantee that bond holders are “taken care of when there are outlier events like COVID or 9/11″ that cause hotel tax revenues to plummet,” Curt Bailey, president of Related Midwest, told the Sun-Times last month. Related Midwest controls the 78 site.

It was not known immediately known whether the Bears plan to use the sales and amusement tax growth generated by their proposed lakefront development to help bankroll the stadium project.

But the team is expected to generate its $2 billion contribution to the project by selling naming rights to the new stadium, selling a far more expensive version of the personal seat licenses that bankrolled the renovation of the existing Soldier Field, and by opening a stadium sportsbook and tapping a forgivable loan from the NFL for hundreds of millions of dollars.