Monsters of the Midway? Not currently. At least, not on the sphere after a 3-14 season that bestowed upon Chicago’s beloved Bears the ignominious distinction of being the worst the NFL has to supply.
Off the sphere, nonetheless, they’re displaying aggressiveness paying homage to their yesteryear glory days.
The Bears’ bid to construct a stadium-anchored megadevelopment in northwest suburban Arlington Heights just lately received jolted by Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi’s choice to evaluate the previous Arlington International Racecourse web site — now property of the Bears — at $197 million, roughly the worth the group paid to purchase the land from Churchill Downs and a far cry from the property’s 2021 evaluation of $33 million.
If Kaegi’s evaluation stands, the Bears could be walloped by large property tax payments. In Cook County, owners and companies are accustomed to getting waylaid by hefty property tax will increase yr after yr, so Bears management shouldn’t be shocked in any respect by the long run hit to group coffers.
The Bears however had a solution to the brand new evaluation. Play hardball. The group immediately prompt they have been not singularly targeted on Arlington Heights and as an alternative have been open to the thought of constructing a brand new stadium in far western Naperville, a DuPage County suburb and Illinois’ fourth-largest municipality.
On Wednesday, Bears President and CEO Kevin Warren additionally sat down with Chicago’s new mayor, Brandon Johnson, who has stated he’d prefer to discover a strategy to maintain the group from leaving town. What if something that assembly yielded isn’t recognized; the pair issued a joint statement afterward that spoke vaguely about “our shared values and commitment to the City of Chicago, the importance of deep roots, and the need for equitable community investment.” Boilerplate verbiage, at greatest.
We don’t fault the Bears in any respect for exercising due diligence in exploring different potential venues, and even utilizing Naperville as leverage in negotiations over the Arlington Heights web site. Like any property proprietor, they’re inside their proper to construct wherever they need, or scrap Plan A in favor of Plan B, if they want.
But by now, they need to have absorbed the message sounded by us and others ever since they raised the prospect of leaving Soldier Field again in 2021. Taxpayers, whether or not they’re in Arlington Heights, Chicago, Naperville or anyplace else in Illinois, shouldn’t should subsidize a multibillion-dollar NFL group’s bid to maneuver from one municipality to a different.
In the occasion the Bears want reminding, the group is a $4 billion enterprise, in line with Forbes journal, with the wherewithal to construct a stadium/megadevelopment on their very own, with out taxpayer assist. There are too many examples of NFL groups which have leaned on taxpayers for truckloads of money for stadium initiatives, solely to see predicted boons to native economies by no means materialize.
Chicagoans know all too properly how the Bears flip to intimidation to get their approach with pliant politicians. During Mayor Richard M. Daley’s reign, the group torqued the screws arduous on City Hall to renovate Soldier Field.
The end result was a saucer-shaped monstrosity that completely marred a memorial to World War I U.S. troopers, and heaped $432 million in public debt on the backs of taxpayers. When the deal was first inked, Daley pledged that taxpayers wouldn’t should pay a dime. To this present day, taxpayers are paying off Soldier Field renovation debt.
Where the Bears find yourself is anybody’s guess. We’re glad Warren and Johnson have had an preliminary sit-down, although Johnson ought to heed the lesson in how Daley blindsided taxpayers with an unconscionably expensive capitulation to the Bears’ calls for. Perhaps Bears speak of Naperville is a smoke display screen; maybe not.
In any case, as this drama unfolds and cities come and go as potential venues, the Bears ought to bear in mind this: The group can all the time depend on Illinoisans as a fan base, however not a checking account.
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Source: www.bostonherald.com