The Bears placed on fairly a present Sunday, upsetting a potent San Francisco 49ers crew 19-10 amid a deluge that turned Soldier Field into one other Great Lake. They additionally placed on fairly a refined efficiency final week at a really totally different venue — John Hersey High School in Arlington Heights.
Bears Chairman George McCaskey, crew President Ted Phillips and a squad of executives and planners appeared on the faculty to pitch to the residents of Arlington Heights their imaginative and prescient of a domed stadium and mixed-use improvement on the 326-acre tract that now could be dwelling to the shuttered Arlington International Racecourse. The Bears are hoping to shut on the deal to buy the parcel both late this 12 months or in early 2023.
The pitch was closely choreographed. Rather than permit viewers members to step as much as a microphone with their questions, folks had been requested to write down their questions on playing cards, some or all of which had been later learn aloud by director of sports activities programming at WBBM radio and Bears radio broadcaster Jeff Joniak and answered by Bears executives. Project planners relied on shiny slides to explain what the mixed-use portion of the venture would appear like — a sprawling plaza with retailers, places of work, a resort, flats and city homes, a health heart, a big pond for kayaking and canoeing and different facilities.
Everyone appeared happy with the prospect of the Bears in the future coming to city. But on the query of utilizing taxpayer cash to assist fund the venture, the gang was far much less enthusiastic.
“Property taxes are my main concern,” Palatine resident Justin Hegy, who attended the assembly in a Bears shirt, instructed the Tribune. “Our property taxes keep going up every year.”
Bears executives had been braced for the tax backlash. Both McCaskey and the soon-to-retire Phillips harassed that not a cent of public funding could be used to assist construct the stadium. Instead, the Bears need tax {dollars} to assist construct infrastructure wanted to help the mixed-use aspect of the venture — the shops, dwellings, resort rooms and workplace house. That infrastructure would come with roads and sewers, together with lane additions, offramps, underpasses and walkways to deal with the anticipated inflow of visitors.
The Bears insist taxpayers could be making a sound funding. In return, the crew says, the financial impression for Arlington Heights and the remainder of the Chicago area would quantity to as excessive as $1.4 billion yearly, together with the creation of practically 10,000 everlasting jobs.
“Every stadium development has had infrastructure costs that have been publicly funded — every single one,” Phillips instructed the gang. “Why does that happen? Because those communities see the short- and long-term economic benefit, and the jobs that are created during construction and afterward.”
On the floor, that will appear convincing — however it’s not.
Experts who’ve scrutinized using subsidies for stadium building and surrounding redevelopment say it’s often the crew that comes out on prime, and taxpayers who find yourself dropping out.
The Atlanta Braves relied on taxpayer assist to construct a brand new ballpark and a surrounding improvement that the crew dubbed “The Battery” in Cobb County, Georgia. In 2013, Cobb County officers pledged $300 million in public funds to assist the mixed-use aspect of the venture get constructed. That funding has but to be recouped. Instead, the venture is costing taxpayers about $15 million every year, based on a report from Kennesaw State University economist J.C. Bradbury. Cobb County’s expertise is hardly reassuring for taxpayers in Arlington Heights and the remainder of Illinois.
Nevertheless, Bears executives stay bullish about their financial profit projections. “There should be tremendous return for the village (of Arlington Heights), for the region and the state,” McCaskey instructed the viewers at Hersey High School.
What taxpayers want is much less of the self-serving pep speak and way more onerous, impartial information on value vs. profit.
Right now, Illinoisans have each proper to stay skeptical in regards to the aspect of this deal that entails public funding. The Bears are on their very own 5-yard line with regards to exhibiting that there’s a marketplace for the mixed-use portion of the venture. The last item Arlington Heights needs or wants is a bevy of recent right-turn lanes, walkways, medians and underpasses — and a variety of empty storefronts and resort rooms, and unoccupied flats.
If the Bears ever plant their flag within the northwest suburbs, there’s little question that the folks of Arlington Heights will likely be ecstatic. Until, in fact, they get the invoice.
They can keep away from that ache by saying sure to the Bears, and no to subsidizing them.
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Source: www.bostonherald.com