PALM BEACH, Fla. — Lower than a yr after the Chicago Bears delivered a grand presentation with a imaginative and prescient to construct a brand new multibillion-dollar stadium on the Museum Campus downtown, the practice for the stadium venture could also be switching tracks towards Arlington Heights.
After the NFL house owners conferences concluded Wednesday at The Breakers resort, Bears President and CEO Kevin Warren confirmed the crew now not has a singular focus on constructing its new stadium downtown.
“The main target now’s each downtown and Arlington Heights,” Warren stated. “One factor I’ve stated earlier than is that these should not linear processes or tasks. They take time. They take a variety of vitality and energy. And I’m very, very happy with the place we’re.”
Whereas removed from stunning, that’s an attention-grabbing change in rhetoric from the highest of the Bears group. Warren praised the potential for a large improvement on the 326 acres the team owns in Arlington Heights on the location of the previous Arlington Park racetrack. His outward enthusiasm for that website was considerably larger than it had been in fairly a while.
“It’s a completely unbelievable piece of land,” Warren stated. “I thank the McCaskey household, led by George, for having the foresight to buy that land.”
Warren stated the subsequent step will likely be conducting visitors and monetary feasibility research for each potential tasks. However his emphatic commendation of the suburban website was notable, as he highlighted the interesting topography of the land, the Metra station adjoining to the property and the ample room for an accompanying leisure district and mixed-use improvement.
Bears Chairman George McCaskey shared Warren’s enthusiasm and famous the imaginative and prescient his grandfather and franchise founder had in Arlington Heights.
“George Halas recognized it greater than 50 years in the past as a great place for a Bears stadium,” McCaskey stated. “And I don’t know if something that has occurred since then modified that analysis.”
The Bears haven’t closed the door on the Warren-led vision to maintain the crew enjoying on the lakefront downtown. And McCaskey was fast to level out the pluses of a doable new stadium on the Museum Campus.
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“Kevin has stated it since he has been right here: (That’s a) lovely spot by the lake,” McCaskey stated. “It’s idyllic, and if there have been adequate enhancements in infrastructure to make that location accessible one year of the yr, it may be a unbelievable alternative as properly.”
These enhancements, nonetheless, finally is perhaps too far-fetched and dear to create the wanted momentum inside the metropolis and state legislatures. The Bears’ downtown pitch hasn’t gained a lot traction during the last yr amongst lawmakers and politicians.
Talking with media Wednesday on an unrelated convention name, Gov. JB Pritzker stated: “We welcome the concept the Bears would keep within the metropolis of Chicago. I’ve at all times stated that that might be my private choice as a result of I’ve identified them at all times to be a Chicago-based crew.”
Pritzker declined to remark additional, saying he hasn’t heard from the crew that it’s nonetheless contemplating the lakefront venture.
Whereas the Bears initally bumped into obstacles with tax dynamics in Arlington Heights, progress has since been made with three suburban faculty districts to pave the best way towards a extra palatable tax setup for the crew.
On the house owners conferences in Florida, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell fielded what has turn into an annual spring query concerning the progress of the Bears’ stadium efforts. He acknowledged the complexity of the stadium exploration course of, which primarily started in June 2021 when the Bears first entered into a purchase order settlement with Churchill Downs Inc. for the Arlington Park land.
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An aerial photograph of the previous Arlington Worldwide Racecourse on March 12, 2024, in Arlington Heights. (Stacey Wescott/Chicago Tribune)
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An aerial photograph of the previous Arlington Worldwide Racecourse on March 12, 2024, in Arlington Heights. (Stacey Wescott/Chicago Tribune)
“These discussions, you anticipate, are going to be thorough,” Goodell instructed reporters throughout a information convention. “There are going to be twists and turns by way of that course of. And you then get to the method of getting to really construct when you make these selections. There’s rather a lot to do.”
Goodell’s spouse, Jane Skinner, is a Chicago-area native, an alumna of Lake Forest Excessive College and Northwestern and a Bears fan. So the commissioner has at the least some heightened curiosity within the crew’s stadium venture.
“I understand how vital the Bears are to that group,” Goodell stated. “Everybody needs the correct long-term answer, and people are the varieties of discussions which are occurring.”
These discussions will tackle heightened urgency with Warren sticking to his vow to interrupt floor earlier than this yr ends.
“My aim nonetheless stays to have the ability to transfer dust round in 2025,” he stated. “Which is vital as a result of there’s a variety of preconstruction work that wants to enter these tasks.”
Deciding on a website is the subsequent large step. A possible Arlington Heights venture might have larger momentum now than a metropolis possibility.
“Each have their pluses and minuses,” McCaskey stated. “Each current unbelievable alternatives. And we’ll simply need to see the way it performs out.”
Tribune reporter Olivia Olander contributed.
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