Taxpayers Can't Afford a New Bears Stadium
Arlington Park racetrack in Arlington Heights, which is likely to close and be sold after this season, is being discussed as a potential location for a new stadium for the Chicago Bears. The state agency which issued bonds for Soldier Field renovations in 2001 still owes hundreds of millions on the debt.
OPINION
It’s a pain to get to Soldier Field. If you live in the suburbs, there aren’t trains that get you directly to the facility in the South Loop, it’s a pain to drive there from anywhere, and you have to walk under Lake Shore Drive in tight quarters just to get up to the stadium on the lake shore.
As stories began to come out earlier this week that the Chicago Bears were considering moving from Soldier Field to the site of the current Arlington Park racetrack in the suburbs, I had two thoughts. The first was happy it was only five stops on the train from my house. The second, more appropriately and a little less selfishly: who’s gonna pay for it?
First of all, a new stadium would cost a bundle. The two newest NFL facilities, SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles and Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas are the two most expensive stadiums ever built. The Los Angeles project was $5.5 billion, and the Vegas project was about $2 billion. The last NFL stadium built for under $1 billion was Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, which opened 13 years ago.
In 2001, the General Assembly gave the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority, the agency that had been established to build the new Comiskey Park in the early 90’s, the ability to issue debt for the planned renovation at Soldier Field. You remember, the one that turned the iconic 1924 facility into an old building topped by a space ship? Yeah, that one.
The ISFA issued nearly $400 million in debt for the project, and, according to a 2019 report from the agency, has barely paid off the interest on the project in 20 years. The Sports Facilities Authority is mostly paid for by hotel lodging taxes in Chicago, but the city of Chicago and state government are each expected to pay $5 million per year to the agency.
But, get this. Over the last few years, state taxpayers have sent over $65 million each year to fund the Sports Facilities Authority. A state budget report explained the expenditure was for “funding for ISFA’s operations, stadium insurance and maintenance, capital improvements, and $46.6 million for fiscal year 2021 debt service payments.”
With the gigantic drop in hotel tax revenue due to the COVID-19 pandemic and outstanding debt, you’re already on the hook for Soldier Field, and could be on the hook for more.
The Bears have a lease with the Chicago Park District, which technically owns Soldier Field, which runs through 2033. Breaking that lease would be difficult, if not impossible. That said, the McCaskey family, which owns the team, can’t build their own stadium in Arlington Heights, Dyer, Indiana, or the surface of the moon, The Bears are the McCaskey family business. Unlike the Ricketts family, which owns the Cubs, the McCaskey’s don’t have billions in their pockets before the parachute into town.
Virginia Halas McCaskey has an estimated net worth of $2.4 billion, but it is nearly all in the value of the team. She still lives in her 1,600 square foot ranch home in suburban Des Plaines she bought in the mid-90’s.
Without private funding, the team would turn to taxpayers in what many consider a rite of passage of taxpayer bilking. The state is swimming in debt and may be helping the Sports Facilities Authority dig out of its Soldier Field hole for some time. Arlington Heights has an entire city budget of under $200 million with sky high property taxes to begin with.
If the Bears don’t get more renovations to Soldier Field, they may very well threaten to move to the suburbs. If they come to the state asking for help from us to fund a stadium project, we should implore our lawmakers to laugh them out of the room.
