The Arlington Heights Village Board authorized two resolutions at its assembly Tuesday night time for consulting contracts meant to research the financial and site visitors impacts of the doable situation that the Chicago Bears buy and redevelop Arlington Park International Racecourse.
Though no deal has been finalized, the Bears have entered/ into a purchase order settlement with Churchill Downs, house owners of the racecourse, to purchase the property.
Hiring the consultants is a definite step ahead within the village’s tenuous back-and-forth with the soccer group, which on Tuesday launched new plans for an leisure, retail, housing and sporting district it could develop on the 326-acre property.
The two resolutions authorized Tuesday permit for agreements between the village and, individually, Hunden Strategic Partners and Sam Schwartz Consulting LLC. The village would pay Hunden about $118,000 to conduct an financial affect examine, and Schwartz would obtain about $85,000 to take a look at transportation impacts. Each of the research is said to redeveloping the property. Though the resolutions stipulate that the consultants are being employed by and can work for the village, cash to pay for the scholars will come from the Bears.
Village Trustee Jim Tinaglia mentioned the consulting settlement was a “belt and suspenders to help protect all of us here.” He mentioned any redevelopment of a web site as giant as Arlington International Racecourse would benefit the same consulting contract.
“This is a big enough project that we would absolutely do this, whether it were the Lions or the Tigers or the Bears,” he mentioned. “And the funds that are being used are being used out of the escrow funds of the petitioners. So there is no tax money being used.”
The village finance director defined that Arlington Heights pays the consultants from the village’s capital initiatives fund however be reimbursed by the soccer group.
According to the memo outlining the request for a advisor, village employees need Hunden Strategic Partners, which has workplaces in Chicago, to guage the monetary evaluation of the Bears’ redevelopment proposal, do the advisor’s personal evaluation of the plan and consider “all project components to ensure the proposed redevelopment results in a net positive fiscal impact upon Arlington Heights.”
The site visitors consulting settlement requires Schwartz, a Chicago-based planning, engineering and design agency, to guage public transit choices for the location, on- and offsite parking potentialities, the capability of the location and its quick environment, and to make suggestions.
In an announcement accompanying the plans and renderings, group officers say building would create not less than 48,000 jobs and have a $9.4 billion financial affect on the area. Once accomplished, the group says the challenge would create virtually 10,000 everlasting jobs and have a $1.4 billion monetary affect on Chicagoland.
Per its web site, Hunden Strategic Partners, which is led by CEO Rob Hunden, has consulted on racecourse-based initiatives in Baltimore and on the Chicago White Sox’s Guaranteed Rate Field.
Tinaglia requested Planning and Development Director Charles Perkins to “take the Bears out of this equation,” as he requested if the village would nonetheless have interaction a advisor for a distinct potential redeveloper.
Perkins mentioned sure.
Trustee Mary Beth Canty mentioned she would stay “agnostic” on whether or not the Bears ought to come to the village till officers answered two questions: “Who is paying for this and how are we moving the people around?”
But Canty mentioned she welcomed the site visitors consulting contract as a technique to get extra details about the potential transit affect of a stadium.
“This is visceral for me,” she mentioned, noting that she lives a couple of mile and a half from the proposed stadium location. “I, myself, am worried.”
Village Manager Randy Recklaus mentioned the consulting agreements have been meant to make sure that if the Bears do transfer ahead with redeveloping the location, which is underneath a purchase order settlement, that the village would see an actual profit to internet hosting them.
“There have been unsuccessful stadium contracts,” he mentioned. “We want to make sure that we’re one of the ones that is successful.”
The Bears are scheduled to carry a neighborhood assembly at John Hersey High School Thursday at 7 p.m. to reply residents’ questions on their lately launched plans.
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Source: www.bostonherald.com