With a flurry of fireworks and the roar of a sellout crowd, the new Soldier Field opened for business Monday night as the Bears brought back NFL football to the shores of Lake Michigan.
The $611 million stadium project took 20 months to complete and forced the team to play all of its 2002 games and the first two games of 2003 on the road. Despite enduring controversy over its exterior–a modern glass bowl inserted between the stadium’s historic colonnades–the interior drew praise from fans.
“Actually, it looks a lot better now that I’m here than it did when I was driving down Lake Shore Drive,” said Mike O’Hara, 52, of Northfield.
“It’s gorgeous,” added Roger Ziech, 33, of Hanover Park, who said he liked the view from the west grandstand but confessed that he had gotten lost in the unfamiliar surroundings.
The Bears, who have yet to win this season, put a damper on the party by losing to the Green Bay Packers 38-23. To many in the stands, that was more important than any amenity.
“I’m an old-timer here,” said Ted Ronczkowski, 73, of Bridgeview as he enjoyed a pregame tailgate party. “I don’t look at the seats, I don’t look at the skyboxes, I don’t look at the concession stands. If they’re not performing on the field, that’s what matters.”
Chicago Park District officials and Chicago police reported few glitches and said traffic appeared to flow well as game time approached. “I think it’s as good as anyone could get on the first day, and I think it’s pretty good,” said parks spokesman Julian Green.
A few fans said they had unwittingly purchased counterfeit tickets from scalpers, only to be turned away at the gate.
Beyond the added restrooms and the more comfortable seats, the stadium also features better amenities for players. “If [players] can’t enjoy all this and enjoy parking underground and walking right into the locker room, then shame on them,” said former Bears offensive lineman Tom Thayer.
Other Bears alumni brought back to mark the occasion recalled the old field, known for its rustic dressing rooms and for freezing solid late in the season. That’s a thing of the past–the new field has heaters under the turf.
“This is sweet,” said Dave Duerson, a safety on the 1985 world champions. “All of the guys from ’85 were talking about how if only this was available to the fans in ’85–not so much us but the fans. They’re the ones who deserve it. It’s first class, it really is.”
Connie Payton, widow of legendary running back Walter Payton, said she knew he was “here, smiling down on all of this. All of this was supposed to happen. I know he’d be so proud.”
The only complaints of note came from reporters and the Packers’ coaches, who said they could not see the field well from the press box.
The game was the culmination of a construction project that began at the final gun of the Bears’ playoff loss to Philadelphia on Jan. 19, 2002. Team officials herded reporters out of the stadium press box that day so the demolition of the interior could begin immediately.
Workers were at the field almost 24 hours a day for the first several months, and 18 to 20 hours a day for much of the project.
“It looks like a great place to watch a football game,” NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue said. ” . . . You can’t argue with the sight lines. I’m not an expert on design. The architecture is bold, and sometimes we’re offended by the bold and sometimes we grow to love the bold. Time will tell how it fits in with the rest of the city and how people react to it.”
The design had its beginnings in 1998, when architect Benjamin Wood measured the distance between the stadium’s historic colonnades and decided that a modern arena could be squeezed within the shell of the old structure.
A few months after that Gov. George Ryan took office, and the next month Ted Phillips replaced Michael McCaskey as Bears team president. Phillips, Ryan and Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley were able to strike a deal to keep the Bears on the lakefront after years of stalled negotiations.
On Nov. 15, 2000, Daley and Phillips announced a joint plan for Soldier Field, and the design would change little before the new stadium opened Monday.
Daley and Phillips pressured the state to allow the stadium to be financed with bonds backed by hotel taxes and a part of Chicago’s portion of the state income tax. The deal was struck within 15 days.
At first the public did not pay much attention to the proposed renovation, as it was announced when the nation was focused on the drawn-out 2000 presidential election.
But when preservationists and lakefront advocates woke up to the possibility of Soldier Field’s imminent alteration, they tried to defeat it. Two lawsuits against the project and its funding failed, and opponents were stymied in efforts to put the project to a public vote.
The team and the city sold the project as an upgrade, with more parking, more restrooms and better sight lines for fans. In an era when stadiums were getting bigger, Soldier Field’s capacity shrank to 61,500, second smallest in the National Football League.
The project was financed through $432 million in bond proceeds and $200 million from the Bears and the NFL, and included $21 million for work on Comiskey Park, now U.S. Cellular Field.
Finishing touches will be completed next spring with the final landscaping.
Such public/private partnerships, Bears Chairman Michael McCaskey said Monday, are “indispensable. And it has worked pretty darn well for a lot of teams.”
Officially called the Lakefront Redevelopment Project, the renovation began in the fall of 2001 with the demolition of the 1938 Chicago Park District headquarters at the north end of the field.
There were a few glitches along the way. The cost of asbestos abatement, estimated at $4 million, shot to more than $13 million. Some of the stadium’s seats, manufactured in Australia, were temporarily held up in customs.
On Monday, architect Wood said he has heard only positive comments about the stadium since its opening ceremony Saturday. Critics, he predicted, would warm to the new venue.
“It’s a space-age stadium, and we live in a space age. If it was being declared a beautiful retro ballpark or stadium, we would not be happy,” Wood said of himself and his partner, Carlos Zapata, who worked on the design with Chicago architecture firm Lohan Caprile Goettsch.
“There is no future without imagination.”
