The Arlington Heights Village Board Tuesday authorised two resolutions for consulting contracts to investigate the financial and site visitors impacts of redeveloping Arlington Park International Racecourse into a brand new Chicago Bears stadium.
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 staff, which on Tuesday launched new plans for an leisure, retail, housing and sporting district it will develop on the 326-acre property.
The two resolutions authorised Tuesday enable 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 impression research, and Schwartz would obtain about $85,000 to have 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 website as giant as Arlington International Racecourse would advantage an identical 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 tasks fund however be reimbursed by the soccer staff.
According to the memo outlining the request for a advisor, village employees need Hunden Strategic Partners, which has workplaces in Chicago, to judge 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 judge public transit choices for the location, on- and off-site parking potentialities, the capability of the location and its rapid environment, and to make suggestions.
In a press release accompanying the plans and renderings, staff officers say development would create a minimum of 48,000 jobs and have a $9.4 billion financial impression on the area. Once accomplished, the staff says the challenge would create nearly 10,000 everlasting jobs and have a $1.4 billion monetary impression on Chicagoland.
Per its web site, Hunden Strategic Partners, which is led by CEO Rob Hunden, has consulted on racecourse-based tasks 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 impression 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 had 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 group assembly at John Hersey High School Thursday at 7 p.m. to reply residents’ questions on their just lately launched plans.
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Source: www.bostonherald.com