O’Donnell: The Bears have words but little leverage regarding Arlington Park
THE BAD NEWS BEARS CAME BOBBING back to the surface last Friday.
Kevin Warren and George McCaskey conducted a sudden 25-minute media session at Halas Hall on an afternoon when the attention of most Bears fans tilted toward Sunday's preseason opener vs. the visiting Dolphins.
The primary topic of “The McWarren Summer Show '25” was the organization's floating efforts to yet again get a new stadium built on the 326 acres that once housed Arlington Park.
They want property-tax certainty before committing to shovels in the ground on the ghostly prairie patch that now lies more dormant than Lake Forest memories of Mitch Trubisky.
ALL HOMEOWNERS AND BUSINESS PROPERTY HOLDERS in the Arlington Heights-Palatine-Rolling Meadows triangle would also like such long-term certainty.
They're not going to get it, and if general street-level public sentiment about the Bears getting any further special tax considerations to build at the former Arlington Park matters, neither should the McWarrens.
For those keeping score, it is now 46 full months since the Bears announced their $197.2M agreement to purchase the Arlington land from the thoroughbred wrecking crew of Churchill Downs Inc.
DURING THAT SPAN, the Bears have:
· Hired Warren and all of his second-tier expertise from being on staff with the Vikings when they finally got their new U.S. Bank Stadium done;
· Flipped focus for a new stadium to Chicago's impregnable lakefront in a business maneuver that failed in as bad a folly as the late Ray Kroc's dedicated efforts to sell the Hula Burger — grilled pineapple with cheese on a bun — to the American public; and,
· Come back knock, knock, knockin' on Arlington's door.
To say they have waffled is a kind assessment.
IF SPORTICO'S LATEST ESTIMATE OF THE TEAM'S VALUE — released last week — is correct, the McWarrens may be overseeing the most confused $8.8 billion corporation in the history of American business.
(That $8.8B valuation — for trackers of regal upward equity — is more than double what the team was projected to be worth five years ago.)
Underpinning all is that nettlesome fact that a preponderance of taxpaying residents living within the municipal limits of Arlington Heights, Palatine and Rolling Meadows don't want any diminishment in the quality of their lives or artificially redirected tax considerations to a brawny sports show business group in search of a more golden playing field.
They especially don't want the uncertainty of suffocating traffic jams on days of any game or other special event.
THE PRESENCE OF A NEW NFL STADIUM in a needy suburb or city in the America of 2025 may indeed drive a beneficial trend in some local economies.
Arlington Heights, Palatine and Rolling Meadows come nowhere close to checking any of those please-help aid application boxes.
As a matter of fact, any area officials actively negotiating with the McWarrens and their associates should make it clear that building a new football stadium along with mixed-use addenda on the choice 326 acres is an extraordinary business blessing.
FROM THE CIVIC SIDE, such give-and-take is hopefully being done with full acknowledgment of that team's home-court, high-leverage bargaining position.
Elected officials and other village administrators in the three chosen suburbs are in their current roles to protect and promote the best interests of their publics.
TOWARD THAT END, here are three suggestions for those overseers to put on any negotiating table with the McWarrens and Co.:
· A holdback of 5,000 free tickets for any game or event at the new Bears stadium to be distributed proportionately to residents of the three impacted suburbs in rotating open lotteries;
· A 40-year freeze on personal-seat license fees to season-ticket holders; and,
· An agreement among the three village hierarchies upon a deadline date for the McWarrens to commit to building on their Empty Acres at AP or sell and allow local retrenchment to move on.
PSYCHOLOGICALLY, THE NORTHWEST SUBURBS HAVE ALREADY taken the great hit with the obscene demolition of Arlington Park. Somehow, pastime life in the region has adjusted.
About that, make no mistake — that's the way an increasingly aggrieved Dick Duchossois wanted it to be.
As far back as 1994, the wise and efficient Sheldon Robbins — Duchossois's original COO and one of his three partners in the purchase of Arlington Park in 1983 — said: “If Dick can figure a way to take his racetrack with him, he will.”
THE BENEFICIARY OF THAT UNFORTUNATE BUSINESS DISMEMBERMENT should be the Chicago Bears.
Instead, the Bad News Bears just keep bobbing back to the surface — with Kevin Warren and George McCaskey as the task-elusive squawking heads.
Jim O'Donnell's Sports and Media column appears each week on Sunday and Wednesday. Reach him at jimodonnelldh@yahoo.com. All communications may be considered for publication.