There’s pie within the sky, after which there’s seven-layer cake daydreams. Apparently, Waukegan Mayor Ann Taylor had the latter this week.
That’s when she didn’t have visions of sugarplums, however of the Chicago Bears discovering a house in Waukegan for its $5 billion domed and multiuse soccer stadium plan.
Can you say Hail Mary?
Taylor grew to become the most recent suburban official to play the Bears baiting sport. In a Monday letter to Kevin Warren, the staff’s pretty new president and CEO, she prolonged an invite to kick round what Waukegan has to supply.
That is that if the staff is critical about strolling away from the positioning of the previous Arlington International Racecourse or the Chicago Park District’s Soldier Field. Demolition is underway on the former horse-racing monitor.
Yet, the Bears say their Arlington Heights web site, bought in February for practically $200 million, is now not the “singular focus” for the brand new stadium. As Yogi Berra as soon as stated: “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.”
With that in thoughts, I’ll exit on a slender limb and say the Bears have little to little interest in siting that stadium in Waukegan. Or Naperville, which additionally has contacted the staff, for that matter.
Good on the mayor for getting people speaking about Waukegan within the combine, and selling town. But if metropolis officers had an opportunity to huddle with the Bears, Taylor may need put the whammy on her scheme when she invoked the title of native son Otto Graham Jr. in her letter.
That can be National Football League Hall of Famer Otto Graham who grew up within the metropolis, graduated from Waukegan Township High School in 1939 and performed soccer and basketball on the Big 10′s Northwestern University within the early Nineteen Forties. It was a pleasant contact to indicate town’s ties to the George Halas period, when he was coach and proprietor.
But then she dedicated a turnover. Graham by no means performed for the Bears.
He was a member of the Cleveland Browns, taking them to league championship title tilts from 1946 to 1955. Graham, who died in 2003 at age 82, additionally coached the Washington professional soccer staff for 3 seasons within the Sixties.
True Waukegan historical past buffs additionally know Graham’s father was a music instructor. One of his pupils was one other metropolis native son — radio, film and tv star Jack Benny.
Taylor didn’t point out Benny in her letter to the Bears, however did level out Waukegan is positioned a mere 20 minutes from Halas Hall in Lake Forest, the Bears’ headquarters and coaching space. She additionally famous town hosted the staff’s short-term coaching heart out close to what’s now Fountain Square again within the Nineteen Nineties.
The core of her letter, although, stated a number of areas of land, together with lakefront property, may very well be developed by the staff for its proposed stadium and leisure district. The Arlington Heights property is sort of 400 acres, and the mayor didn’t disclose what Waukegan websites could be accessible for such a big endeavor.
“We believe that the Monsters of the Midway deserve the opportunity to continue the tradition of playing along the shores of Lake Michigan, with the market opportunity of having a year-round facility capable of hosting other major events, including the Super Bowl, the Final Four, and other events on an international scale,” the mayor wrote the staff.
The metropolis’s proximity to Interstate 94, Route 41 and Metra rail service on the Union Pacific’s North Line have been different Waukegan pluses, she stated.
“Our working class and diverse community is as tough as the 1985 Super Bowl-winning Bears, and our leadership team at Waukegan City Hall is as aggressive as Justin Fields running the ball downfield when it comes to creating economic opportunities for our City, our residents, and the region at large,” Taylor stated within the letter. “Our City’s staff and I invite you and your leadership to come to Waukegan to learn about the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity our City can offer the Bears.”
The mayor additionally went lengthy in her letter by reminding staff officers gamers have lived in Lake County for generations. “Some members of the Bears organization currently live in my neighborhood in Waukegan,” she stated of town’s far southwest aspect.
It will likely be attention-grabbing to see how Bears’ officers react to Waukegan being within the stadium combine. But with Arlington Heights believed to stay the staff’s favourite stadium location, the mayor’s last-minute blitz sounds extra like only a scrimmage than sport day.
Charles Selle is a former News-Sun reporter, political editor and editor.
Twitter: @sellenews
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Source: www.bostonherald.com