Daily Herald opinion: Not a final answer: But Bears tax deal does let local planners get down to important work

Almost from the beginning, the two-year flirtation between the Bears and the suburbs has been a matter of more questions than answers. The tax deal facing key stakeholders this week doesn’t entirely change that picture, but it does at least clear the way to fill in some blanks over the next year or so.

On Monday, Arlington Heights village board members approved a memorandum of understanding with the Bears that, assuming it is also approved this week by the boards of three affected suburban school districts, will stabilize the Bears’ property tax situation involving the former Arlington Park property until at least 2027 — though at about 40% of what the franchise paid last year. But the major advantage of the agreement is that it also requires the team to put its consultants back to work studying economic, traffic and other local impact issues of the slumbering $5 billion business and entertainment development originally proposed for the 326-acre site.

The likelihood of that vision ever coming to pass has dwindled almost to nothing in the past year, as the prospect of an expansive lakefront development in the city turned the heads of new Bears leadership. The viability of that option remains snarled in a welter of political and financial uncertainties, so the franchise isn’t yet willing to formally end its courtship with the suburbs, leaving leaders here with the frustrating prospect of a drawn-out wait to see whether the city option will come through or even whether they can have the data they need to build a case, if they even want to, for competing with the site in Chicago.

As Arlington Heights Village Manager Randy Recklaus said before Monday’s vote, “We’ve been very clear that we cannot review this project in any way, shape or form without having that type of information.”

Now, they can get it, as, presumably, can Palatine Elementary School District 15, Northwest Suburban High School District 214 and Palatine-Schaumburg High School District 211, all of which have been locked in a bureaucratic wrestling match with the Bears over the size of the team’s property tax bill.

That is not an insignificant outcome. The Arlington Park property, as the Bears situation amply demonstrates, holds the potential for transformative development — NFL team or no NFL team. As long as it sits fallow, no real progress can be made toward realizing that potential. Moreover, if the Bears plan ultimately falls through, the school and village leaders could face even more long years of waiting for a new vision to emerge.

So, at least for now, the Bears will pay $3.6 million in property taxes through 2027 and potentially through 2031 if the team does settle on the suburban site and begins construction. The agreement does not satisfy any of the definitive questions holding up progress at the moment — with the amount of taxpayer money the franchise can wrestle away from state and/or local taxpayers highest on the list — but it does get past one not-insignificant obstacle, and it gives local planners some options for their own decision making about the ultimate merits and value of the proposal the Bears may someday seriously float.