Renderings of the proposed Bears stadium, released Wednesday, included this vision of what Soldier Field would look like if it were deconstructed, with the colonnades preserved and the playing surface converted to parkland and baseball/softball diamonds. But this part of the project would not be completed until after the new stadium — and would require hundreds of millions of dollars from taxpayers.
Chicago Bears
In laying out their dream for a new $3.5 billion domed lakefront stadium, Bears President Kevin Warren and Mayor Brandon Johnson repeatedly invoked the name of Daniel Burnham. They described a lush and reimagined Museum Campus with 14 acres of new parkland they claimed would add a worthy new chapter to the Burnham Plan.
But the Bears aren’t offering to pay for any of those improvements. Their entire $2.3 billion contribution is for a new stadium that also requires state lawmakers to approve $1.1 billion in new bonding authority.
That begs the question: What happens if the city and state can come up with only the $325 million for basic infrastructure improvements to open the new stadium — but not the additional $510 million needed for the second phase of work, which includes deconstructing Soldier Field to create new green space?
It could leave Chicago with two lakefront stadiums — and no additional park space.
On Thursday, Bears President Kevin Warren was asked about that worst-case scenario during a somewhat contentious meeting with the Sun-Times Editorial Board.
Warren argued the Bears’ desire to play at Soldier Field during construction — instead of in Champaign as they did in 2002, during the renovation of Soldier Field — requires that the public benefits used to sell the proposal come later.
But he refused to entertain the possibility that those benefits won’t happen.
“I’m not going to think negatively about that now,” Warren said.
“If that’s the conclusion that … you want to reach now, then you can say that,” he added. “I’m being positive about it … and being very transparent as far as what we need from the different three phases with this stadium project.”
Warren said his focus is on getting legislative approval in this year’s spring session, which requires winning over dubious legislative leaders and a skeptical Gov. J.B. Pritzker. The governor didn’t attend Wednesday’s big announcement. He wasn’t even invited.
“We’ve communicated with his staff. We’re looking forward to getting together with him soon,” Warren said Thursday. “He said what he said. We respect him. He’s a great leader.”
A $2.3 billion contribution from the Bears and the NFL still leaves a $900 million funding gap to be filled just to build and finance the $3.22 billion stadium designed by David Manica, architect of Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas.
To fill that gap, the team wants the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority to issue 40-year bonds backed by the same 2% city hotel tax that helped pay for the 2002-2003 renovation of Soldier Field.
But that raises another problem. The White Sox want the hotel tax revenue to help fund a new South Loop ballpark.
Without additional tax revenue — from sales and amusement tax revenue generated by both stadium projects — the Sox would be left high and dry. Sox Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf, who has a strong track record in Springfield, would have to mount a goal line stand against the Bears.
Sports marketing consultant Marc Ganis, who has advised numerous NFL and MLB teams on stadium financing, said he can’t imagine state lawmakers taking all revenue from a hotel tax originally approved to build the current Sox stadium and giving it to the Bears.
“If it ever happened, then you can basically kiss the White Sox goodbye,” Ganis said. “The message will have been sent: `You’re unimportant. Go to Nashville.’”
Illinois Senate President Don Harmon, D-Oak Park, has insisted the Bears and Sox share the bonding authority and come to Springfield with a single financing plan for both stadiums.
Warren said he has held several negotiating sessions, hoping to come to some agreement with the Sox.
“We’re not trying to be selfish,” he said. “I love the White Sox. I have great respect for Jerry Reinsdorf and what he’s meant to this city. … We would love nothing more than to have them to be able to build their stadium and for us to build our stadium.”
Friends of the Parks responded to Wednesday’s announcement by posing nine questions for the Bears and the elected officials supporting them.
They questioned the Bears’ financing assumptions and asked why Johnson is allowing “wealth and power to dictate public policy,” particularly on a lakefront that Burnham famously said should remain “forever open, clear and free.”
“How does this plan demonstrate an investment in the people that Mayor Johnson promised to Chicago when he ran for office? ” the group’s statement asked.
Contacted Thursday, Gin Kilgore, acting executive director of Friends of the Parks, refused to go beyond the written statement, or say if her group would file suit to stop the Bears, just as it forced movie mogul George Lucas to abandon plans for a museum on Soldier Field’s south parking lot.
Warren said he’s not concerned about a protracted legal battle stalling the team’s stadium plans.
“There’s been a stadium on this [lakefront] campus for 100 years,” he said.
“We have one goal right now … to be transparent, to show our love, respect and appreciation for the city of Chicago, for the state of Illinois and to try to build a home for the Chicago Bears that will be a multipurpose, mixed-use stadium that will create opportunities for jobs, for increased tax base, to allow the city and state to bid for mega events. We have not focused on many what-if’s.”
Phase 3 of the infrastructure plan — $665 million of the $1.5 billion — includes a publicly owned lakefront hotel that would almost certainly violate a Lakefront Protection Ordinance that largely prohibits new construction east of Lake Shore Drive.
But Warren hinted rather strongly the hotel was included in the Phase 3 proposal so it could be bargained away to placate Friends of the Parks.
“If that is something that does not work, or it doesn’t make sense for whatever reason … that is very easy to be eliminated,” Warren said.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson spoke in favor of the Bears’ stadium plan at Wednesday’s presentation at Soldier Field. In doing so, according to the Civic Federation and Friends of the Parks, the mayor acted not as a guardian of the public interest but as a cheerleader for the project.
Pat Nabong/Sun-Times
As with Soldier Field, the team would lease the new stadium from the Chicago Park District. Warren said he’s willing to sign a 40-year lease, matching the bond issue. But he again refused to say what he would like to change compared to the current lease, an almost constant source of contention between the Bears and Park District.
Under the 30-year lease signed before the 2003 renovation, the Bears will pay about $7 million for the upcoming season. The team gets game-day revenue from tickets, concessions, merchandise and advertising signs in the stadium. They also collect on 4,250 parking spots for game-day customers.
Civic Federation President Joe Ferguson said running out of infrastructure money is quite possible, because the final two phases “absolutely require federal and state money” — and federal money is likely to dry up if Donald Trump returns to the White House.
But what concerns Ferguson most is how much Johnson has allowed the team to be “running the show” instead of “being steered by a government that is standing independently, acting in the primary interest of the taxpayers and the general public,” Ferguson said.
What’s needed now, he added, is “an independent, comparative economic analysis. We can’t expect, at this juncture, for this to be done by the city because the city has already cast its lot before we’ve even started to debate it.”
Contributing: Mitchell Armentrout