It was fascinating to hear Bears President/CEO Kevin Warren and Mayor Brandon Johnson announce recently that they had plans for a new Bears stadium on the lakefront.
It was weird because, well, weren’t the Bears going to build their new stadium in Arlington Heights, where they had purchased the land on which the now-demolished Arlington International Racecourse stood?
‘‘We are the largest landowner in Arlington Heights right now,’’ Warren said.
So?
But taxes are too high there, the Bears said. Can’t build.
So other suburbs got interested. Naperville, Waukegan, Aurora and Country Club Hills joined the welcoming conga line. Did we hear Rockford — 90 miles from Soldier Field — floated as a stadium possibility? Yes, we did.
Then, almost out of nowhere, came this multibillion dollar plan for a sprawling domed stadium where the parking lot south of Soldier Field is. The stadium, as designed, would be immense, eight stories taller than Soldier Field. Think anybody would notice?
We won’t get into how much this would cost Chicagoans. We’ll disregard all the blather about hotel and tourist taxes paying for it and new bonds being issued and those marvelous things called TIFs helping out.
The very definition of tax increment financing — ‘‘the joint investment in the development or redevelopment of an area, with the intent that any short-term gains be reinvested and leveraged so that all taxing bodies will receive larger financial gains in the future’’ — sounds like snake oil of the strongest kind.
Yet Mayor Johnson says the new stadium idea is great. And Warren does, too, of course. Conveniently, Warren seems to have made his best new buddy since scooting over from the Big Ten in January 2023 — that being the mayor of a city always struggling to pay its bills.
But Warren’s declaration was full of defiant good cheer.
‘‘The plan will be to put a shovel in the ground on the lakefront,’’ he said.
Let’s get beyond the partial public financing of a gigantic building for a private company (remember, we don’t own the Bears; the McCaskeys do) and move to an equally, if not more, important matter. That is the lakefront, the greatest gift ever bestowed upon Chicago.
There is nothing like Chicago’s glorious access to Lake Michigan, which, along with the other Great Lakes, holds 90% of America’s fresh surface water. You think that’s precious? When you notice that a liter of bottled water costs more than a liter of gasoline, it hits you.
We can go back to two of the most impressive events in Chicago’s history, the Great Fire of 1871 and Daniel Burnham and Edward H. Bennett’s 1909 ‘‘Plan of Chicago.’’ The first gave us the best urban architecture in the United States. The second told us the lakefront ‘‘should be treated as park space to the greatest possible extent,’’ then declared: ‘‘The Lake front by right belongs to the people.’’
That’s us. Not the Bears. Not the mayor. The people. The citizens.
And now is a perfect time for citizens to think bigger than a mere sports stadium — a structure that, by the way, could be built in any of numerous spots in Chicago — and take up the city spirit of Burnham’s famed dictum, ‘‘Make no little plans. ... Think big.’’
We should make the lakefront even better than it now is. Make it spectacular.
Back in 1870, plans for Lake Shore Drive (now DuSable Lake Shore Drive) were begun. In time, the road effectively cut off much of residential Chicago from the beaches, water and surrounding nature. Sure, you can get to Lake Michigan through various passages, but crossing DuSable Lake Shore Drive itself is impossible. Unless running across eight lanes of divided highway traffic works for you.
Imagine Chicago connected to the lakefront for almost all of its 26 miles. Imagine DuSable Lake Shore Drive lowered underground or completely torn up. Imagine it gone. It is noisy and filthy and acts like a moat filled with crocodiles for a huge stretch of Chicago’s eastern boundary.
Sure, it’s a semicrazy idea. But it has been floated before by architects with Burnham’s vision. Such a move would change Chicago into a city on the lake, not by the lake. The grass, trees, parks and public spaces that could result would change our city for all time. There would be nothing like us anywhere.
Yes, it’s a wild idea.
Or we can default and just build another stadium by the lake and watch the games that happen there. That’s easy. That’s small.
Go, Bears.
