As the Chicago Bears proceed to face large obstacles in Springfield over plans to construct a domed stadium close to Soldier Field, the group stated Monday it has reached an settlement on property taxes for the 326 acres of land it owns in Arlington Heights who had stumbled upon plans to construct a brand new stadium within the northwestern suburbs.
Team officers stated they’ve agreed to a memorandum of understanding relating to the quantity of taxes to be paid for the previous Arlington International Racecourse website. If authorized by village and native faculty boards, which might occur subsequent month, the deal does not assure the group will construct a stadium there, however it shifts some momentum to the suburban website and retains the group’s choices much more open than earlier than. .
“The Chicago Bears stay targeted on investing greater than $2 billion to construct a publicly owned, enclosed stadium on Chicago’s lakefront, whereas reevaluating the feasibility of a improvement in Bronzeville,” Bears officers stated in an announcement of the group launched Monday. “That stated, we stay important landowners in Arlington Heights and establishing a framework for potential future improvement planning, financing and property tax certainty has been a precedence because the land was bought. We proceed to have productive conversations with the village and college districts and are aligned on a framework ought to we select to discover a possible improvement.”
Despite its deal with constructing a brand new stadium in Chicago, the group by no means closed the door on the Arlington Heights website, largely as a result of the lakefront proposal withered as a consequence of opposition from state leaders.
Arlington Heights Mayor Tom Hayes referred to as the settlement a “important step.”
“We have had productive conversations with the Bears and college districts, and imagine now we have agreed on a framework for shifting ahead on beforehand unresolved fiscal points,” Hayes stated. “I anticipate that this settlement can be formalized within the close to future. It outlines a clearer path ahead.”
In addition to the location close to Soldier Field and the Arlington Heights property, which the group bought final 12 months, one other website the Bears are is the land as soon as occupied by the Michael Reese Hospital in Bronzeville close to Lake Michigan.
The Bears beforehand dismissed the previous Michael Reese website as too small and stated the location was additionally unworkable as a result of it’s close to Metra tracks that pose a security danger, all of which Hayes cited as causes he’s optimistic on Arlington Heights.
“If the Bears come again, it will likely be a a lot simpler highway,” Hayes stated of the suburban website, including that he hopes progress is made between the tax authorities and the group within the first half of subsequent 12 months. “We are on the identical rating. All events are able to seize the chance when the Bears come again our method. I’m inspired that one thing would possibly occur within the spring to construct a brand new stadium in Arlington Heights.”
After the Bears launched their assertion, the three native faculty districts — Community Consolidated School District 15 in Palatine, Arlington Heights-based Township High School District 214 and Palatine-based High School District 211 — launched a joint assertion Monday : “ We proceed to imagine that Arlington Heights stays an unbelievable alternative and have mutual settlement with the group on easy methods to create a framework for potential improvement, financing and property tax certainty in Arlington Heights that works for all events. We look ahead to future conversations.
The Bears bought the 326-acre former Arlington Park in 2023 for $197 million and introduced plans for a $2 billion enclosed stadium as a part of a $5 billion mixed-use improvement.
Chicago Bears present renderings of shuttered stadium advanced in Arlington Heights, however say they are going to count on public funding for surrounding leisure district
But after new group president Kevin Warren took over that 12 months, he stated native colleges’ proposals for website taxes had been a failure and turned the group’s consideration again to town. With the help of Mayor Brandon Johnson, the group earlier this 12 months proposed contributing $2 billion towards a $3.2 billion publicly owned enclosed stadium to interchange Soldier Field. The $3.2 billion determine doesn’t embody the $1.5 billion in publicly funded infrastructure that the group says can be wanted to totally understand its imaginative and prescient of a year-round venue and surrounding inexperienced area .
Gov. JB Pritzker and legislative leaders have thrown chilly water on the concept, saying the state’s priorities are totally different from offering giant quantities of funding to a personal enterprise.
Both the lakefront and Arlington Heights tasks would contain public {dollars}, one thing lawmakers have been very cool about for each websites. But some lawmakers in northwest suburban states not too long ago stated current developments are encouraging.
Democratic state Sen. Mark Walker of Arlington Heights stated that regardless of the group’s settlement with faculty districts, bigger monetary points about how the undertaking can be paid for have but to be resolved. Team officers stated they would wish public funding to assist pay for infrastructure reminiscent of new freeway ramps for the Arlington Heights website.
An earlier payment-in-lieu-of-taxes, or PILOT, proposal, wherein long-term taxes can be addressed, would require state laws. But funding considerations might be exacerbated by a gap within the state’s projected funds of almost $3.2 billion for the following fiscal 12 months that may forestall lawmakers from making important subsidies to taxpayers. Concerns additionally embody Johnson’s struggles to stability his proposed $17.3 billion funds, with aldermen earlier this month voting unanimously to spice up his plan to implement a property tax enhance of 300 million {dollars}.
“I feel native communities, significantly Arlington Heights, have extra flexibility in offering property tax aid than town (of Chicago) at this level,” Walker stated. “But the problems of capital and state funding are nonetheless open and… my guess is that the Bears must discover one other supply for giant cash.”
State Rep. Mary Beth Canty, who continued to help the Bears’ transfer to Arlington Heights, referred to as the memorandum of understanding “a optimistic step ahead.”
“I feel it is a nice alternative and I feel they might do very properly right here. They have the chance to be actually good neighbors,” Canty, an Arlington Heights Democrat, stated of the Bears. “I can be eager to see what the boards must say once they carry this up of their conferences, as I’m certain they are going to be required to take action. But I feel everybody will come to the desk considering positively and in addition enthusiastic about what the neighborhood wants, what the neighborhood desires, and the way can we accomplish these issues in a method that strikes everybody ahead.”
The deal would cowl taxes going ahead, however the Bears proceed to attraction the group’s 2023 tax invoice to the Illinois Property Tax Appeal Board. The group additionally demolished the previous Race Track stadium to decrease taxes, leaving the location empty.
Suburban faculty officers have all the time doubted that taxes had been the figuring out issue within the group’s resolution to play in Arlington Heights as a result of they supplied lower than the estimated $9 million tax invoice, a comparatively small sum in what can be a multibillion-dollar deal.
The taxes had been elevated after Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi raised the property’s evaluation to shut to the location’s buy worth of $197 million. Ultimately, the alderman must approve any tax settlement.
Originally printed:
