Waukegan’s time to shine as home to a new Bears stadium is as dull as the paint job on a used Chevy Lumina. The same could be said of other towns that wanted to be home to the Bears den for a few decades.
City officials knew it was a long shot — like a flawless bracket prediction in March Madness — when they told the Bears a Lake Michigan shoreline site for the football team’s proposed gridiron arena is ready and waiting. It was a nice try when Waukegan Mayor Ann Taylor invited the team, based in Lake Forest, to take a peek at what the city had to offer in the way of available land.
Those other communities — Aurora and Naperville, among them — who also ponied up for the stadium race figured they had an equal chance of trapping the Bears. Sort of like buying a Powerball ticket when the big jackpots are up for grabs. Even Arlington Heights, once the darling of the Bears’ brain trust, must feel left out as the team seems to have returned to focusing on a lakefront site in Chicago, close to the existing Soldier Field. The village’s officials must see the stadium slipping away because they came up with a property tax deal last month, offering the team some financial breaks on the razed Arlington Park the Bears bought outright for $197 million.
The Bears’ early plans in the northwest suburb included an entertainment zone, with new revenue possibilities, surrounding a domed stadium. That was until assessments of the property didn’t match up with the team’s appraisals.
There’s been more spinning of where the team wants to locate — the former racetrack and its 326 acres off Northwest Highway or staying in Chicago — than in “Vertigo,” Alfred Hitchcock’s masterful 1958 thriller. At times, confusion reigns over where the Bears want to locate.
If we’re dizzy over the back and forth, the vestibular systems of the team’s officials must be working overtime to keep them balanced. Especially as they say they are ready to ante up $2 billion for a new stadium.
Added to the scrimmage is a plan by the White Sox to put a new baseball stadium close to the lakefront, south of Chicago’s Loop. Sox Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf, who also owns the Chicago Bulls, traveled to Springfield earlier this year to meet with legislators to pitch the idea.
The thing is, neither of the teams’ current stadiums are obsolete. They function quite well.
They’re not decaying ruins. Soldier Field was revamped a few years back to the tune of $660 million. The 30,000-plus fans who turned out last week at Guaranteed Rate Field in Bridgeport for the White Sox opening day didn’t seem to have concerns over the sturdiness of the ballpark.
Nearly every sports team wants shiny and new. Last year, about a dozen Major League Baseball and National Football League franchises took steps toward new or improved stadiums.
Financing plans for both the Bears and Sox are hazy. Both teams certainly wouldn’t turn down public funds thrown into play to defray billions in new construction. There currently is pushback to that possibility.
According to The Associated Press, a survey conducted last year for the Global Sport Institute at Arizona State University in Tempe found pro sports teams were viewed as a necessary cultural component of communities by 60% of respondents. Yet fewer than half believed governments should provide public funds for stadiums.
That jibes with a recent poll of Chicagoans by a polling firm hired by former Gov. Pat Quinn. Of those surveyed, 66% said they were strongly opposed to taxpayer subsidies for any new stadiums. Quinn wants an advisory referendum on the Nov. 5 ballot asking if Chicago voters would support public funding for the Bears and Sox.
If Chicagoans polled are skeptical of using public funds for stadiums for privately owned teams, so are accountants. Bean counters say that with limited dollars in the public’s pockets, sporting events siphon spending away from other forms of entertainment instead of generating new income.
The prestige of hosting a storied NFL franchise is one of the reasons that led Waukegan and the other towns to rush to entice the Bears. The lure of additional revenue enhancements is another. These are the same folks who seek casinos, video poker outlets and pot dispensaries.
Where the Bears eventually end up only team officials have an inkling. Their muddled plans may become clearer as they get closer to the start of the 2024-25 football campaign and draft a new quarterback this month.
Charles Selle is a former News-Sun reporter, political editor and editor.
sellenews@gmail.com
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