A new northwest suburban stadium for the Bears would hold 68,000 fans, rely heavily on pricey club and box seats and be completed no later than 2005–within the period the Chicago Park District says it is willing to extend the team’s Soldier Field lease.
That is the preliminary scenario contained in reports prepared for the team by a consultant trying to determine how well Elk Grove Village or Hoffman Estates would absorb the heavy traffic generated by a new stadium attached to a conference center and hotel.
The Tribune obtained the documents through a records request from the Illinois Department of Transportation, which also is examining how a northwest suburban Bears stadium would affect the area’s already congested traffic.
The documents indicate that the Bears have moved well beyond discussing concepts and are considering specific details of what it would take to move out of Chicago to the northwest suburbs.
In particular, the proposal to designate 18 percent of the new stadium’s seats for higher-paying patrons reflects the team’s desire to finance as much of the project as possible itself, without having to rely on subsidies from the state or local governments. State and local officials have repeatedly warned the Bears not to expect taxpayer money.
As the team’s lease winds down at Soldier Field, the Bears have considered land in Elk Grove Village and Hoffman Estates as sites for a new stadium. Last year, the team requested a two-year extension from the Chicago Park District on its lease at Soldier Field, which expires Jan. 31, 2000. That would have required that a new stadium be built quickly to be ready in time for the opening of the National Football League season in the fall of 2002.
But the traffic reports filed with the state by the team’s consultant indicate that the Bears now are resigned to what city negotiators have called their best and last offer at Soldier Field–a five-year extension, after which the team could bolt. Last month, city negotiators and the Bears finally spoke after months of silence. But nothing of substance came of the discussion, according to both parties.
For their part, the Bears on Wednesday said little of the revelations detailed by the new reports. Ted Phillips, the team’s vice president of operations and point man in stadium negotiations, declined to comment on when or whether a new stadium would need to be completed, allowing only that “we would like to be in a new stadium, wherever it is, as soon as possible.”
In surveys for the team by its consultant, Hanover Park-based Metro Transportation Group Inc., the Bears anticipate 2,000 skybox seats and 10,000 club seats in the proposed new stadium–a lucrative proposition, considering that teams charge patrons hundreds or thousands of dollars more annually for the right to view games from prime locations. Soldier Field has no club seats. It has 116 skyboxes that seat about 1,850 fans.
The proposed stadium capacity of 68,000, which Phillips said was preliminary, would make the stadium about the same size as 66,944-seat Soldier Field, now the 15th largest in the 30-team National Football League.
The Elk Grove Village site appears to be the one that the Bears are considering most seriously. The 69 acres in unincorporated Cook County, surrounded entirely by the village, borders Higgins Road and Oakton Street, just off the Northwest Tollway. It belongs to farmer Allen Busse, who is asking $30 million for the land.
A Sunday Bears game there would draw 25 percent more traffic to the area than it currently experiences during a normal weekday commute, or an additional 22,333 vehicles, averaging three people to a car, plus 25 buses carrying 40 fans each, according to the consultant’s study.
The consultant estimates that most of the parking needed to handle the fans–about 19,800 spaces–would not be on local streets but rather in existing parking lots or vacant areas that could be used for parking. The stadium itself would provide parking for about 4,600 vehicles.
The consultant proposed a laundry list of improvements that it considers necessary to handle the extra traffic. Some are temporary measures that would be put in place only before and after games, such as allowing cars to drive on shoulders on the Northwest and Tri-State Tollways.
But the team also would want some major permanent changes, including the addition of a fourth lane on the eastbound Northwest Tollway between Lee Street and the Tri-State–already one of the busiest stretches on the tollway system.
Traffic flow to the proposed stadium also would require the widening of Higgins Road to six lanes from four between Arlington Heights Road and Oakton Street.
The consultant also proposed adding a lane on the ramp from Higgins Road to southbound Illinois Highway 53.
In the face of mounting resistance by residents whose homes would come under the shadow of a new stadium, Elk Grove Mayor Craig Johnson on Tuesday took the unusual step of issuing a statement at a meeting of the Village Board detailing what conditions must be satisfied for a deal to be considered.
He said the negotiating team that includes development lawyer Mary Riordan, hired by the village months ago solely to help with Bears issues, would not consider a stadium and conference center that “cannot financially survive with just the Chicago Bears games.” A key element in this financial equation would be the conference center, which the Bears recently have proposed incorporating into the stadium development.
