In shift away from Arlington Heights, Bears make pitch for new city stadium and public subsidies

The Chicago Bears on Wednesday unveiled their long-rumored plans for a publicly owned domed stadium on the Chicago lakefront — a shift from their earlier proposal for a privately owned stadium in Arlington Heights — as they try to curry favor with state and city legislators to help pay for it.

The Bears pledged $2.3 billion in private funds for a three-phased, $4.7 billion redevelopment that would put an enclosed stadium on Soldier Field’s south parking lot and develop a surrounding recreation and cultural campus. The plan includes removing the current Soldier Field seating bowl installed two decades ago — while preserving the original century-old colonnades — to make way for public athletic fields and green space.

The NFL club’s proposal calls for about half of total project costs to be funded by taxpayers.

When the Oakland Raiders announced a move to Las Vegas in 2017, they received $750 million in public money to build Allegiant Stadium, a $1.9 billion facility that opened in 2020. At the time, it was the record for taxpayer money going to fund a stadium.

The Buffalo Bills topped that last year, when the team reached a deal that gave them $850 million in taxpayer funding to build a new, $1.7 billion stadium.

The Bears are seeking authorization from legislators in Springfield to extend Illinois Sports Facilities Authority bonds, backed by the 2% Chicago hotel tax, for 40 years. The agency would also refinance its existing debt taken out for the 2003 Soldier Field renovations and to build Guaranteed Rate Field.

The plan could generate $900 million in funds for the new stadium, which is expected to cost $3.2 billion alone, officials said.

A liquidity reserve fund would also be established to protect the city from any unexpected drop in hotel revenues, said Karen Murphy, the Bears’ executive vice president of stadium development and chief operating officer.

Murphy said the team’s private contribution of just over $2 billion for the stadium would come from a combination of equity and debt, plus a $300 million loan from the NFL.

Giving the plan his full endorsement, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson joined Bears President and CEO Kevin Warren, Bears Chairman George McCaskey and other top team brass and consultants for the noontime VIP event at the United Club inside Soldier Field.

But at the same time, two top state leaders — who hold the purse strings to public subsides the Bears are seeking — threw cold water on the project.

“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,” in comparison with other needs in the state like health care, Gov. J.B. Pritzker said at an event at Loyola hospital in Maywood.

“I'm a Bears fan, I want to be clear. I want them to win. I want them to have a great place to play,” Pritzker continued. “But I just think that taxpayers’ dollars need to be protected. I think it’s my job to be a good steward of those dollars. I’m for economic development, I’ve been attracting businesses to the state, working hard to create jobs … the problem is that the offer that they’ve made just isn’t one that I think the taxpayers are interested in getting engaged in.”

At the same news conference, House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch said he told Warren last week that any vote on Bears subsidy legislation right now “would fail, and it would fail miserably.”

“There’s no environment for something like this today. Now in Springfield, environments change,” said Welch, but he added, it was “highly unlikely” anything would change before the current spring legislative session ends May 24.

The Bears’ event Wednesday mirrored a presentation McCaskey and then-team President Ted Phillips made at John Hersey High School in Arlington Heights in September 2022, when renderings for a domed stadium and adjoining mixed-use district at Arlington Park were revealed. The team closed on its purchase of the 326-acre property in February 2023.

But since Phillips retired and Warren took the helm, the NFL franchise has shifted its focus away from the suburbs and back to the city.

The suburban relocation was seen as a way for the Bears — who currently have a lease with the Chicago Park District for Soldier Field through 2033 — to have greater control as property owners and benefit from ancillary revenue streams.

Warren faced a similar situation as a Minnesota Vikings executive, when the team abandoned plans for a new stadium in suburban Arden Hills and built it instead in downtown Minneapolis.

“I don’t ever want to say trust me, but … we don’t look at it in a derogatory manner of being a ‘renter’. We look at it as being a good partner with each other,” Warren told the Daily Herald. “I feel strongly about the power, the substance of a public-private partnership. And I believe in Mayor Johnson. I believe in his staff. I believe in his vision. I believe in this city.”

Warren became Bears president a year ago, around the same time of Johnson’s election. They appear to have repaired what had been a strained relationship between the city and the Bears under former Mayor Lori Lightfoot and then-President Phillips.

“It is worth remembering how different things were just a year ago,” Johnson said. “The Bears were reportedly as good as gone. … And now here it is a year later. Kevin is the president of the Bears, I’m the mayor of the city of Chicago, and the Bears are committed to staying in Chicago.”

The Wednesday reveal came on the eve of one of the biggest NFL Draft nights in history for the Bears, who hold the first overall pick and appear poised to select USC quarterback Caleb Williams.

Touchdown Arlington, the pro-Bears-to-Arlington Heights business coalition, was set to host its latest letter-writing party at Jimmy D’s District sports bar on draft night to urge three Arlington Heights-area school boards to reach agreement with the Bears on a yearlong property tax dispute.

But amid the release of the city stadium plans, group organizers decided to postpone their event to gather more information.

In an email to supporters, Touchdown Arlington leaders wrote that they still believe an Arlington Heights stadium is very much on the table, since there are significant issues facing the proposed development on the lakefront. They include opposition from groups like Friends of the Parks — which successfully fended off filmmaker George Lucas’ museum on the same Soldier Field parking lot site — questions over funding, public ownership of the stadium, and a lack of public interest in contributing taxpayer dollars to the project.

In a statement Wednesday night, officials from Friends of the Parks said the “Chicago Way” was on full display at the earlier news conference.

“Once again, Chicago taxpayers are being told what is good for them. We are told that a new domed stadium on protected lakefront land will make Chicago a great city. We are already a great city — in large part due to our protected lakefront. As is so often the case in Chicago, the powerful and wealthy are demanding that our entire city stop and fast track their plans to expand operations on the people’s lakefront.”

Citing “difficulty” with the tax situation in Arlington Heights, Warren said his staff considered up to a dozen other locations for a new stadium, including the former Michael Reese Hospital property in nearby Bronzeville — which was suggested by the parks group. But Warren said that site is narrow and would have to be developed over train lines.

In response to early opposition from state leaders, Warren said he looks forward to having more conversations with them. He still hopes to get approval during the General Assembly’s current session, citing building cost estimates that could rise $150 million to $200 million “every year we wait,” he said.

Under the earliest timeline, construction on the stadium would begin in summer 2025, with the first football game there in 2028. The Bears would play at Soldier Field until then, Warren said.

It could take five years to do all three phases of redevelopment, he said.

· Daily Herald staff writers Marni Pyke and Chuck Keeshan contributed to this report.