With Mayor Brandon Johnson as lead blocker, the Bears on Wednesday launched their hurry-up offense to win legislative approval of their $4.7 billion plan to build a domed lakefront stadium during the final month of the Illinois General Assembly’s spring session.
Working for the Bears is a $2 billion contribution from the team billed as the largest private investment in Illinois history.
The political obstacles include a cold reception from Gov. J.B. Pritzker and state legislative leaders with more important priorities, along with the potential for a legal battle with Friends of the Parks, the public advocacy group that serves as the primary protector of the lakefront. The group is guided by the Lakefront Protection Ordinance that prohibits new construction east of Lake Shore Drive.
“This is not an easy project,” Bears President Kevin Warren openly acknowledged at a Soldier Field news conference, adding “Chicago doesn’t like it easy. We like to do the difficult things — the things that resonate with people for generations to come.”
It will indeed be difficult to get any help from Pritzker, who was not invited to Bears’ big announcement. The governor has been critical of early reports that the team would ask for taxpayer assistance, and remained so on 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,” Pritzker said at a news conference in Maywood.
Mayor leads cheers: ‘Thank you for believing in Chicago’
Johnson, on the other hand, happily took on the role as cheerleader for the project.
“This is a beautiful day for the city of Chicago…It’s an honor to celebrate the Bears’ commitment to remaining the Chicago Bears,” the mayor said. “Thank you for believing in Chicago and my administration.”
Johnson said he established three must-haves: no new or increased taxes; a “real and substantial private investment,” and “public use and participation.”
“Today’s announcement delivers on all three,” he said. “What it does not call for is raising existing taxes or imposing any new taxes...There are no new taxes on the residents of Chicago.”
That won’t be enough to get Friends of the Parks on board. The advocacy group issued a list of concerns, including a lack of community involvement, questions about the veracity of rosy economic impact estimates and, of course, the use of lakefront property.
“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,” the group said in its statement.
“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.”
By the numbers
Of the estimated $4.7 billion for the entire project, $3.22 billion is for the stadium alone. The rest is needed for infrastructure improvements. According to the team, the infrastructure work could be done in phases, though about $325 million would be required to make sure the stadium can open, bringing the minimum cost of opening the new facility to $3.5 billion.
Even with the $2 billion contribution from the Bears, a $900 million funding gap would still need to be filled just to build and finance the stadium designed by David Manica, architect of Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas.
Karen Murphy, chief financial officer of the Bears, said the team hopes the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority will fill that gap by issuing 40-year bonds backed by the same 2% city hotel tax used to bankroll the 2003 renovation of Soldier Field. The 40-year bonds would also be enough to refinance $589.1 million in outstanding Soldier Field debt, along with $50 million owed on renovations at Guaranteed Rate Field.
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.
Murphy said the Bears’ new financing plan assumes more “conservative hotel tax growth” and “protects the city from unexpected drops” in hotel revenue. That’s just part of what made the deal so attractive to City Hall, according to Jill Jaworski, the city’s chief financial officer.
“Hotel revenues are relatively volatile. They definitely swing with the economy. One of the things that got us comfortable at the city when we looked at the plans the Bears had for the ISFA debt … was that they’re assuming a lower rate of growth. But they’ve also incorporated about … a $160 million liquidity reserve,” Jaworski said.
“Between looking at a lower rate of growth that is more reasonable so we’ll see that debt increase at a more modest rate, and the fact that we have such a large liquidity reserve that we could access — we think we have less risk under this scenario than we do right now....A more conservative structure — we think that insulates us more and reduces our risk going forward.”
Jaworski noted the current schedule for repaying Soldier Field bonds calls for balloon payments at the end, the result of modifications that salvaged the deal after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks caused a tourism drop, leading to lower hotel tax revenues. Payments go from $56.7 million this year to $90.5 million in 2032, the year those bonds would be retired.
Because of that, “we would expect, without a refinancing, that that would hit the city budget every year in an increasing amount,” Jaworski said.
Labor leader touts jobs: ‘I’d like to build two stadiums’
Sources said the Bears and Sox plan to join forces and seek immediate approval of their ambitious stadium plans during the spring legislative session.
That will be a heavy lift, even with support from union leaders salivating at the promise of 43,000 construction jobs generated by the domed lakefront stadium alone.
“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,” Pritzker said at an unrelated news conference on Wednesday.
“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.”
Illinois House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch (D-Chicago) went so far as to say the Bears proposal would “fail miserably” if the team tried to get it passed in the spring session.
Chicago Federation of Labor President Bob Reiter was in Washington Wednesday and said he had not yet been briefed on specifics of the Bears’ plan. But the lure of 43,000 construction jobs on the lakefront stadium alone, not to mention the White Sox hopes for a ballpark in the South Loop, has Reiter sounding like he’s ready to start lobbying labor allies in Springfield.
“I’d like to build two stadiums,” Reiter told the Sun-Times, excited by the prospect of “modernizing our professional sports infrastructure” and “what that could mean for the people who work in stadiums, our members who play on the field, our members who work in the stands [and] the members who build the structures.”
Warren anxious to dig in on lakefront
Warren was not intimidated by the early legislative opposition.
“We feel that the time is now. Every year that we wait, it’s $150 [million] to $250 million of increased costs that ultimately we’ll have to figure out. But we don’t think that’s prudent. The time is now. Our expectation is in this session,” Warren said.
“Even if we’re approved in a fall veto session, we wouldn’t be able to get in the ground because of the weather. It would push it back a year. If we’re approved in May, that would allow us to start construction and put people to work next summer and that would allow us 36 months later to open up our building in 2028. So this truly is one of those adages that time is money.”
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.
Johnson was dazzled by the Bears’ multi-media presentation, and by the promise of tens of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in tax-generating “economic activity” — and not at all concerned that progressive voters who put him in office won’t see it that way.
“These pictures are miraculous. We’re talking about thousands of lives that will benefit from this investment,” Johnson said. “The sooner we can put shovels in the ground and put people to work — that is our surest way to secure a better, stronger, safer Chicago. And it benefits the entire region. We’re talking about $8 billion of economic vibrancy as a result of this investment. The time is now for that. Think about how long we’ve been waiting for investments like this.”
Manica’s stadium design likely will be seen by many as a vast improvement over the much-criticized, spaceship-like seating bowl plopped onto Soldier Field’s historic colonnades in 2003. With the new stadium, Warren said, fans will be be protected from the elements but “feel like they’re outside.”
They “might even have to wear sunglasses” while looking up through the translucent roof, a design similar to the roof at SoFi Stadium, or through the “clear glass” walls at the lakefront and Chicago’s iconic skyline.
Warren said the team considered but dismissed the possibility of a retractable roof, since it would have added hundreds of millions of dollars to the cost — and, based on conversations with teams that do have retractable roofs, it likely would have been used just a handful of times each year.
Outside, Warren said, the team envisions developing a “promenade plaza” with food and beverage options, public restrooms, a sports and cultural museum, and ice skating in winter.
Soldier Field to be demolished — except for the colonnades
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.
“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.”
The plan calls for most of Soldier Field to be demolished, preserving only the historic colonnades. The Bears took great pains to make those columns a focal point for the 14 acres of new park land, playing fields and other recreational space that would be located south of the new stadium.
During a question-and-answer session after Wednesday’s presentation, Warren said he looked at “10-to-12” possible stadium sites in Chicago before settling on the lakefront.
The Michael Reese Hospital site that Friends of the Parks has urged the team to consider was rejected because it was “very narrow” and “doesn’t work from an NFL standpoint” because the stadium would have to be built “over an active train line.” The marshaling yards for trucks serving McCormick Place also would have to be relocated.
After years of tension between the Bears and their landlords at the Chicago Park District, Warren was asked whether he was seeking more favorable terms in a new stadium lease.
“The terms we’d be looking for is terms that you would do with a partner. We just want to be fair with each other,” Warren said, without elaborating. “And I’m confident with Mayor Johnson and the leadership of the city of Chicago that they’re fair people. They’re talented business people and we would be able to work out fair terms because that’s the only way that a public-private partnership is able to thrive.”
