The Chicago Bears stadium saga has fallen silent again. Everybody knows that won’t last long. Affairs remain deadlocked. Illinois has a preferred site, Arlington Heights, that the team officially owns. Unfortunately, they don’t have the legislation necessary to start building. Conversely, Indiana has already provided the legislation to build there, but both potential sites under consideration face significant roadblocks. Namely, environmental protection that would require costly legal battles to overturn.
This deadlock means it will be some time before a possible resolution is found. Either Indiana finds a way to bypass the environmental issues, or Illinois finally pushes through a bill that gives the Bears the tax certainty they need. That said, other parties have begun surfacing with potential solutions to the problem. One of the most recent comes from Mayor Terrance Carr of McCook, Illinois. He believes his town has a potential stadium location that could interest the Bears, according to Steve Metsch of the Des Plaines Valley News.
The proposed site is at the southeast corner of 55th Street and East Avenue, filled in quarry land. Vulcan owns the 150 acres and has listed the land for sale, Carr said.
“Vulcan has some concerns, which I get. But they’re willing to sell,” said Carr, who has talked with Vulcan officials.
He expects the asking price to be “about $160 million because they know they have a gem now.”
His proposal: The Bears or the village would buy the land. Then the Bears would build a domed, 80,000-seat stadium, which the team would give to the village. In return, Carr would charge the team $1 a year in rent. As a publicly owned stadium, it would be exempt from property taxes.
A Chicago Bears stadium there would be an interesting compromise.
At first, the site feels too small for the team to consider. Both possible locations in Arlington Heights and Indiana are over 320 acres. A site of 150 acres is less than half that size. That won’t leave much room for business expansion. Then again, there are things working in this proposal’s favor. A former quarry site won’t have any notable environmental protections to worry about. The town is directly down I-55 from downtown, runs past Midway International Airport, and has Metra train access. So there are some transportation benefits.
Perhaps most importantly, it is closer to the city. Arlington Heights is a 35-minute drive to downtown and 50 minutes during rush hour. McCook is 15 minutes and 25 with traffic. City officials have worked hard to block any move to Arlington because it would drastically reduce commuter traffic downtown on gamedays. That wouldn’t be as big a problem with McCook. Being closer to downtown means commuters will traverse through it to reach the township for games, maintaining strong revenue streams.
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Truth be told, we’re probably past this point.
It’s been made clear that the Chicago Bears stadium discussion is down to two sites. Either Arlington Heights or a spot somewhere in Hammond. The only possible third option they might consider is something downtown, but we’ve already seen how problematic that is. Besides, McCook is in Cook County. That would just run into the same property tax issues that plague the Arlington negotiations. If those were somehow figured out, the Bears would want to just build there, not McCook.
The one big selling point is the closer proximity to Chicago. Such an idea might get Mayor Brandon Johnson and his voting bloc on board. It keeps the revenue flowing to the city and erases a major obstacle in the legislature. Maybe that will be enough if it becomes clear over the next few months that Arlington Heights and Hammond are stuck in bureaucratic quicksand. For now, don’t expect the McCaskeys to deviate from the current course unless they receive an outrageous offer from somewhere else.
