The Arlington Heights Bears? Here’s what to know about the team’s possible move from Chicago’s Soldier Field. – Orange County Register
The Chicago Bears signed a purchase agreement for Arlington International Racecourse in September 2021, a move that takes the team a step closer toward securing property for a new stadium and leaving their longtime home at Soldier Field.
The Bears on June 17 submitted one of multiple bids to purchase the Arlington Heights property, which Churchill Downs Inc. last winter announced would be up for sale for redevelopment.
Bears President and CEO Ted Phillips said in a statement that finalizing the agreement was the “critical next step in continuing our exploration of the property and its potential.” Churchill Downs announced the sale price was $197.2 million and said it anticipated closing the sale in late 2022 or early 2023.
Soldier Field, which is owned by the Chicago Park District, holds 61,500 fans, the smallest capacity in the NFL. The Bears also would be able to develop the 326-acre property around the stadium with shopping, dining and entertainment.
Here’s what to know about the possible move from Soldier Field, with reaction from City Hall to Arlington Heights.
Bears envision an ‘entertainment destination with multiple facets’ in Arlington Heights. But the team cautions it still is in the exploration phase.
Chairman George McCaskey was careful to note the Bears still are in the exploratory phase of their potential purchase of the former Arlington International Racecourse property.
But he also called the possible new stadium site in Arlington Heights an “outstanding, long-term proposition with high potential for the Bears.”
President and CEO Ted Phillips called the 326-acre Arlington site an “extremely unique property” and said the Bears’ vision is “an entertainment destination with multiple facets to it that I think could really help put Arlington Heights on the map as a destination spot.”
What would a potential new Bears stadium in Arlington Heights be like? Here’s a look at the 7 newest NFL stadiums, from capacity to best amenities.
If the Bears do move, it will be interesting to see how they develop the land: Would they build a domed stadium or one with a retractable roof? Or would they keep it an open-air venue? And what would they do with the surrounding area not used for the stadium?
The Bears have remained tight-lipped about their plans, perhaps because they still are working to complete the deal and need more time to look at all options. And, of course, they likely are considering how much they want to spend on the development.
Here’s a look at the seven newest NFL stadiums — so dream big, Bears fans.
A Chicago Bears move to Arlington Heights may leave thousands of fans with worthless Soldier Field seat licenses
The Bears sold 26,000 permanent seat licenses, or PSLs, priced between $765 and $10,000 each, to help fund the 2003 renovation of Soldier Field. While many of those seats have since changed hands, thousands of current PSL owners now face the prospect of their investments expiring worthless if the team packs up for the northwest suburbs.
The Soldier Field seat license terminates at “the end of the final home game of the last season in which the team plays home games in the stadium,” according to the Bears’ PSL agreement.
What are the costs if the Bears bail on Chicago for Arlington Heights?
The McCaskey family that owns the Bears has been tight-lipped about its pursuit of a new home, and the Bears remain a private business enterprise, which leaves many of the questions about how the team might finance a potentially multibillion dollar stadium unanswered for now.
What is more clear is the potential cost to the city of Chicago if its marquee tenant for Soldier Field leaves, and how much the Bears might have to pony up to break their lease with the city.
How Arlington Heights hung a welcome sign for the Chicago Bears
After Churchill Downs Inc. announced plans in February to close Arlington International Racecourse and sell one of the most coveted properties in the northwest suburbs, local officials recognized an opportunity.
“We set the stage so that developers and investors would know what we were looking for, and that there were some things that we don’t want,” Charles Witherington-Perkins, the village’s director of planning and community development, recently told the Tribune.
Against that backdrop, the Village Board essentially hung a welcome sign for the Chicago Bears.
Would travel to an Arlington Heights Bears stadium be better or worse than Soldier Field? It depends on how you get there, fans say.
Getting to and from Arlington Heights — and whether it would be better, or worse, than dealing with Soldier Field traffic or the trek on public transit — is yet another layer of the Bears’ potential move to the northwest suburb that has fans sharply divided.
Metra’s Union Pacific Northwest line has two stops in Arlington Heights, one downtown and one at the potential stadium site, but the site is not accessible by other public transit. The suburb offers a chance to avoid driving downtown and worrying about parking, but is farther from many Chicago neighborhoods and other suburbs.
State rejects Arlington International’s OTB parlors, citing owner’s shutdown of horse racing at what could become site of Bears’ new home
Regulators on Thursday turned down Arlington International Racecourse’s request to operate off-track betting parlors in Illinois next year, citing its shutdown of live horse racing at the track.
The Illinois Racing Board voted 5-5 on whether to issue Arlington a license to operate OTB facilities, meaning that the request was rejected.
The owner of Arlington, Churchill Downs Inc., announced this year that it had a preliminary agreement to sell the 326-acre site in Arlington Heights to the Chicago Bears for $197 million.
Officials at Hawthorne Racecourse in west suburban Stickney proposed that they could take over the betting sites, though that could require closing some of its current sites, or a change in state law to raise the maximum number of sites it is allowed.
Will Chicago fight to keep the Bears? And what would a new stadium cost taxpayers? Q&A about the team’s possible move to Arlington Heights.
Now the stakes have been raised, as the Bears’ offer has been accepted and it works to see if it can finalize the deal. We try to answer the important questions around a possible move to the ‘burbs..
Bears need to be ‘more forthcoming’ about what will keep them in the city, Mayor Lightfoot says
Mayor Lori Lightfoot said her administration continues talking with the Chicago Bears about staying in the city but said the team need “to be more forthcoming about what they want.”
The city will be announcing a group of people who will look at the entire Soldier Field campus to ensure it’s being used effectively. Lightfoot, who called herself a “long-suffering” Bears season ticket holder, said during a Monday morning interview with The Score that she will continue to work to keep the team here.
In Arlington Heights, the possible future home of the Bears, early development separated the suburb’s fortunes from Chicago: ‘This is not a depressed area’
When a developer stepped up in the late 1990s with a bold vision for transforming downtown Arlington Heights, a citizens group called the Shadow Project lambasted the proposed 13-story condominium building, fearing the high-rise would cast the heart of their hometown in darkness.
Despite the outcry from residents fretful that the development would destroy the village’s small-town charms, officials gave their blessing to the Arlington Town Square project, which brought 100 luxury condominiums, a six-screen movie theater and dozens of national retailers and restaurants to this northwest suburb straddling the railroad tracks.
Before long, the village’s downtown business district was bustling, its sleepy streets and empty storefronts resurrected by an era of undaunted growth that during the next three decades put Arlington Heights on the map as a prototype for successful transit-oriented development, earning the village a top prize in a national competition.
“It makes sense for the Bears to be interested in coming to Arlington Heights, because we have a very vibrant business and residential community, and this is not a depressed area they’d be coming into that needs to be revived,” said Jon Ridler, executive director of the Arlington Heights Chamber of Commerce.
Political shrugs replace scramble for funding as Bears eye move to suburbs: ‘Cities are smarter now’
The road from Soldier Field to Arlington International Racecourse is 31.2 miles and years in the making, marking it as potentially the longest and biggest scoring drive in Chicago Bears’ history.
A lot has changed in the decades since Chicago last confronted the issue of a new playground for the Bears, before the team settled into a vastly remodeled and reconfigured Soldier Field in 2003 after years of negotiations involving the city and the state.
Arlington Heights mayor: ‘We’re not going to give away the store’ to land Bears stadium deal
After a week of unbridled enthusiasm over the prospect of the Chicago Bears moving to Arlington Heights, the jubilant mood was tempered Monday as residents brought concerns to local officials in a public forum for the first time.
Mayor Thomas Hayes said the village has not committed any funds to the Bears project, and while tax incentives are offered to businesses, “it’s a last resort.”
At tailgates Sunday outside Soldier Field, the Bears’ possible departure is a burning issue: ‘Arlington Heights, if they move, here I come’
Amid the sizzle of brats and burgers on Weber grills and plumes of cigar smoke, something else was burning outside historic Soldier Field on Sunday, days after fans awoke to the news of a possible move away from the 97-year-old stadium.
On the upper Waldron parking deck just south of the stadium, the Bears’ possible move to Arlington Heights was unsurprisingly a hot topic among the hundreds of fan cookouts and makeshift watering holes.
“In the end of the day, (the new proposed site) is not Chicago,” Marlowe Parker said, cigar in hand. “Arlington Heights is Arlington Heights. Are we going to be called them the Arlington Heights Bears?” she asked incredulously. “No! You’re going to be called the Chicago Bears, you should stay here.”
Chicago’s Soldier Field: Hosting the world’s athletes, congregations, politicians and performers since 1924
Chicago’s stadium on the lakefront has hosted a variety of people — football players and circus performers, politicians and civil rights movement activists, observers of religious and cultural milestones, the Rolling Stones and Special Olympics supporters with megaphones — in its almost 100 years.
Bears fans weren’t shy about offering their opinions about a potential move out of Soldier Field — and Chicago
With its views of Chicago’s skyline and games enhanced by wind-driven snow, the 97-year-old stadium is as much a part of the Bears identity as tenacious linebackers or underperforming quarterbacks. The team’s allegiance to the lakefront shrine has long been a point of civic pride, giving fans something to brag about even when — especially when — they couldn’t brag about the squad itself.
Yet, seemingly, the storied site can no longer compete with the so-called fan experience marketed by other teams.
Fans, however, were exponentially more understanding and some even expressed a draft day-like optimism that better days are ahead. With a tentative deal unlikely to close before late 2022, they dreamed openly of shorter concessions, easier parking, better tailgating opportunities and a domed stadium that protected them from biting winter winds.
Column: Are the Bears leaving the Soldier Field Spaceship for a new mega-stadium in the land of Jiffy Lubes? Of course. Take your 1.1 yards per play and get out of town.
News of the Chicago Bears’ purchase of the Arlington Heights Racecourse property proves they’re serious about leaving Soldier Field. The sooner, the better, writes Paul Sullivan.
Chicago Bears standoff could be a lose-lose for Mayor Lori Lightfoot: a huge defeat if the team leaves, a potentially huge price tag for taxpayers if it stays
Die-hard Chicago Bears fan Mayor Lori Lightfoot must be sympathizing with rookie quarterback Justin Fields’ tough day in Cleveland: flee Browns defensive lineman Myles Garrett, only to get knocked to the ground — again — by linebacker Jadeveon Clowney.
The mayor faces a similarly intimidating set of obstacles in her bid to keep the Bears from decamping to Arlington Heights: Come up with a miracle and billions of dollars in taxpayer money to convince them to stay, further hamstringing the city’s finances. Or go down in history as the mayor who lost a charter member of the National Football League to the suburbs.
The Chicago Bears have called Soldier Field home since 1971 — but they have flirted with leaving the downtown stadium several times since
Wrigley Field served as the original home venue for the team when it moved to Chicago in 1921 and remained there through 1970. The team won nearly 70% of its home games during that span.
But the Bears were forced to find a new home after the American Football League merged with the National Football League and required stadiums to seat at least 50,000 fans. The team played its last game at Wrigley Field on Dec. 13, 1970, beating the Packers 35-17.
Restaurants? Soccer stadium? With careful planning, an Arlington Heights stadium could lure additional development.
Hotels, restaurants, bars and other entertainment are natural fits around a football stadium, said Jason Wurtz, executive vice president at commercial real estate firm NAI Hiffman. But the size of the property means it’s likely too big for just one use, and there have to be enough people around to patronize businesses during off days and the off season, he said.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker wants the Bears to stay in Chicago, but says that’s up to the team and Mayor Lori Lightfoot
Gov. J.B. Pritzker said Thursday that it’s up to Mayor Lori Lightfoot and leaders in northwest suburban Arlington Heights to determine whether local taxpayers should help pay to build a new stadium for the Chicago Bears.
Pritzker did not unequivocally rule out state subsidies for a new stadium, but said no one from the football team had approached him.
A Chicago Bears move to Arlington Heights would be a ‘win-win’ to many. But about that traffic and construction …
Just days after a farewell fireworks display marked the end of a storied era of thoroughbred horse racing in Arlington Heights, residents woke up Wednesday to the news that the Chicago Bears in a few years could be making the northwest suburb their home.
The move by the Bears is not a done deal. And some in the village might not want to get their hopes too high. About 50 years ago, the Bears floated the idea of moving there.
State help for a new Bears stadium would be a tough sell — Chicago lawmaker calls the potential move ‘a gut punch’
A possible state role in the Bears’ potential move from the lakefront to the northwest suburbs has yet to be formally discussed, but any request from the team for financial assistance would likely prove a tough sell as Illinois emerges from the coronavirus pandemic and continues to grapple with chronic fiscal ills.
Democratic state Rep. Kam Buckner, a former University of Illinois football player whose district is home to Soldier Field, called Wednesday’s announcement “extremely disheartening.”
Closing day and era at Arlington International Racecourse as season and possibly horse racing comes to end: ‘They’re going to be dearly missed’
After almost a century of thoroughbred racing, Arlington International Racecourse in Arlington Heights closed its gates to the sport Saturday for the final time – and the future of the venue remains uncertain.
Racetrack fans, staff and even jockeys collectively agreed it was a sad day at Arlington Park. Horses ran the final turn, fans donned their fancy hats and placed their final bets while staff faced an uncertain future. Many shared the memories of family fun and spectacular fireworks, sunny Saturday afternoons with friends winning big or losing, and the grandeur of a racetrack unlike any other.
https://www.ocregister.com/2022/01/12/the-arlington-heights-bears-heres-what-to-know-about-the-teams-possible-move-from-chicagos-soldier-field-2/ The Arlington Heights Bears? Here’s what to know about the team’s possible move from Chicago’s Soldier Field. – Orange County Register
