The Chicago Bears are working towards finding a new home for their team. Soldier Field has hosted them for over 50 years. However, the size and outdated look of the stadium, along with tense relations with the Chicago Park District, led them to purchase the Arlington Park property in Arlington Heights. Everybody felt it was a given the team would eventually move there once a new stadium was built. Then, things took an unexpected shift over the past few months. As talks with the local governing bodies bogged down, new team president Kevin Warren appears to have shifted them back towards a resolution with Chicago.
Part of the problem is a lack of cooperation from several key figures in Arlington Heights. Based on new information from Robert McCoppin of the Chicago Tribune, it sounds like some unscrupulous things are happening down there. Start with Samantha Steele, one of the three commissioners of the Cook County Review Board.
The night before the board’s ruling, Board of Review Commissioner Samantha Steele released to the Tribune what she said was the board analysts’ proposed valuation of $138 million that, according to her, had tentative agreement among the commissioners.
After that news broke, the other two commissioners, George Cardenas and Larry Rogers, voted to lower the assessment to $125 million.
Cardenas said the $138 million was not final, and that he followed the findings of the certified analysts to render a decision that was fair for all parties, based on comparable land values in the area…
…On Friday, the board’s general counsel and ethics officer, Cristin Duffy, wrote a letter to attorneys for the Bears and local schools, thanking them for bringing the matter to her attention. Duffy called Steele’s communication with the media “premature and inappropriate,” saying it “gives the appearance of impropriety, and infringes on the due process rights of the parties that appear before the CCBOR.”
In other words, Steele was called out for trying to hijack the process.
It gets better. Part of the problem was the valuation of the property the Bears purchased. They expected it to come in considerably lower, as is typically the case in such situations. Instead, the assessor tried to set the price at almost exactly what the organization paid to get it.
The Bears bought the site for $197 million in 2023. Assessor Fritz Kaegi’s office valued the site at nearly the same amount. The team accused the assessor of “sales chasing,” pegging the assessment to the sales price without making it equitable with other properties.
The state constitution prohibits sales chasing, although court rulings allow the price to be considered as a key indicator of market value.
Assessor officials said they looked at comparable values in the area in raising the land value nearly sevenfold. The Bears countered that other comparable large properties, like the former Allstate and United Airlines headquarters, were valued at far below their sales prices.
The Chicago Bears aren’t being given incentives to work things out.
It sounds like plenty of people are trying to gouge them for every dollar they can get. Now, yes, the Bears are a billion-dollar company. This isn’t a mom-and-pop shop being ripped off by politicians. Still, it doesn’t sound like the process is being conducted with fairness in mind. Sadly, this is a reputation that has haunted Cook County for many years. Shady business practices are the same as breathing. Rather than wade through that quagmire, Warren believes it might serve his agenda better to get premium lakefront property in the city.
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There is still a chance the school districts in the area might reach a compromise on the property tax situation. As of now, that feels unlikely. Their leadership has remained dug in on the issue. Combine that with the Chicago Bears seeming far more motivated to work out a deal with Chicago and it suddenly becomes interesting to wonder what will happen to that Arlington property if it doesn’t get a stadium.
