CHICAGO — As expected, if they’re going to build their proposed new domed stadium on the lakefront, the Bears will face a fight from Chicago advocacy group Friends of the Parks.
The Sun-Times reports this week that FOTP says it’s “prepared to fight for the lakefront,” although the group is not ready to say if that will include mounting a legal challenge to the Bears’ lakefront stadium plans, according to the paper.
The comments came from Gin Kilgore, FOTP’s acting executive director, in her first extended interview since the Bears unveiled their plan last month, the Sun-Times says.
That plan includes building and financing the new stadium, plus retiring existing debt that was used to renovate Soldier Field, the Bears’ longtime current home, and to build Guaranteed Rate Field, home of the Chicago White Sox since 1991.
While the Bears say the new stadium would cost $4.7 billion, of which the team will contribute just over $2 billion, Illinois Sports Facilities Authority executive director Frank Bilecki told the Sun-Times late last month that the real cost to taxpayers would be close to $7 billion over the lifetime of financing the new stadium.
In addition to financing issues, the expected opposition from FOTP over the proposed lakefront location, just south of Soldier Field on Museum Campus, puts up another roadblock for the Bears.
In 2016, FOTP blocked “Star Wars” mogul George Lucas from building a movie art museum on the same site as the proposed new Bears stadium.
Kilgore told the Sun-Times that a fight over the stadium could end up in court but that filing a lawsuit is “not the first thing you want to do.”
“We are prepared to fight for the lakefront,” Kilgore told the Sun-Times. “We are prepared to stand on behalf of the doctrines, the principles that say our lakefront should be forever open, clear and free for public use.
“… (But) this is not a fully-fleshed-out proposal.”
FOTP has previously implored the Bears and the city to slow down on the new stadium process and do their due diligence regarding the lakefront. FOTP has also asked whether the Bears have even considered other sites in the city.
One of Kilgore’s biggest concerns, she told the Sun-Times, is the Bears’ three-phase plan calling for $1.5 billion in infrastructure projects for the proposed new stadium. Only the first $325 million is guaranteed, the report says, so FOTP is concerned whether enough state and federal funds would even become available to ultimately finish the infrastructure projects.
Kilgore tells the Sun-Times “there are very few details” about the final two phases of the infrastructure plans.
“It is common in Chicago for promises to be broken, whether willfully or through, ‘Oops, we’ve run out of money,'” Kilgore told the paper.
Like Soldier Field, the new stadium would be built on lakefront parkland that’s owned by the Chicago Park District, which raises further issues. The report says the Bears would want a much better deal than the one they have on their current lease at Soldier Field.
According to the report, the Bears pay roughly $7 million in annual rent under the existing Soldier Field lease, and the Park District also collects fees on gameday parking for nearly 8,000 spots. For non-gameday events, the report says, talent pays a fee to use the stadium, and the Park District collects all food, beverage and parking revenue.
When totaled, the report says, Soldier Field is the second-leading source of revenue for the Park District.
Without that stream of revenue, “You would devastate the Park District,” a source familiar with the Bears’ existing Soldier Field lease told the Sun-Times.