Bears announce plan to spend $2 billion on stadium in Chicago
CHICAGO (CBS)-- The Chicago Bears are shifting their plans from building a new stadium in Arlington Heights to helping fund a new stadium in the City of Chicago, the team announced Monday morning.
Bears President and CEO Kevin Warren said in a statement the team would contribute over $2 billion to build a new stadium in Chicago.
"The Chicago Bears are proud to contribute over $2 billion to build a stadium and improve open spaces for all families, fans and the general public to enjoy in the City of Chicago," Warren said in the statement. "The future stadium of the Chicago Bears will bring a transformative opportunity to our region -- boosting the economy, creating jobs, facilitating mega events and generating millions in tax revenue. We look forward to sharing more information when our plans are finalized."
As of Monday, it was unclear exactly where the new stadium would be built and what would happen to Soldier Field, which first opened in 1924 and has been the Bears' home stadium since 1971.
Last summer, the Bears' plan to build a new stadium appeared to be focused on the site of the old Arlington International Racecourse in the northwest suburbs, after the team had spent millions to buy the site and tore down the racetrack.
But earlier this year, the team appeared to put that plan on the back burner in favor of building their new stadium along the Chicago lakefront.
"There's a benefit for the Bears of staying in Chicago. They agree," Mayor Brandon Johnson said on Monday. "There's a benefit to public use. That's what I've been pushing. The second thing, they agree. They also recognize that we have a fiduciary responsibility with private and public partnerships to ensure that there's an ultimate benefit as well as not the heavy burden that historically has been the case."
The team has had conversations with city officials about possibly building a domed stadium on Soldier Field's south parking lot. While the team confirmed Monday morning it would provide $2 billion in private financing to replace Soldier Field with a new domed stadium, it was unclear whether their plan for the lakefront would require any public funding.
Justin Marlowe, a professor at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy, told CBS 2 that building a public-private partnership while constructing a new stadium is easier said than done and that taxpayers could end up paying for some of the bill.
"There may be some additional taxpayer contributions, but the argument there will be that all of those contributions will come from taxes that are generated on the site, so you'd be paying amusement taxes, and sales taxes, and hotel/motel taxes and other things that are not necessarily general taxes that everyone would pay," Marlowe said. "So I think it's fair to say that the impact on taxpayers will be pretty comparable to what it's been for the last 20, 30 years."
Questions also remain about whether the Bears' plans would face a legal challenge. The city's lakefront protection ordinance largely prohibits new construction east of DuSable Lake Shore Drive. That ordinance was the basis of a lawsuit by the nonprofit Friends of the Parks that successfully blocked a previous plan by Star Wars filmmaker George Lucas to build a museum on the same site where the Bears now want to build a new stadium. Lucas instead ended up building that museum in Los Angeles.
The Bears have been in talks for a new stadium to replace Soldier Field since 2021, when they first bid on the purchase of the Arlington International Racecourse property in Arlington Heights. The Bears ultimately bought the site for $197 million in February of 2023. Demolition of the grandstand and other structures on the site was completed in October.
In January of last year, Warren made it clear that he was ready to lead the team's move out of the Chicago and into a new stadium in Arlington Heights. He said at that time that the Bears' sole focus for a new stadium was the Arlington Heights site, and they were not considering any options to stay at Soldier Field, the smallest stadium in the NFL.
But by June of last year, Warren was calling the plan to move to Arlington Heights a "stalemate," and at a news conference Wednesday, he emphasized the focus as being on getting a plan for a new stadium right – regardless of where it ends up being built.