Chicago Bears President/CEO Kevin Warren reiterated his commitment this week to building a new stadium on the Chicago lakefront, but acknowledged the sprawling Arlington Heights property the team owns is an “opportunity.”
Warren’s latest comments — which came during the national TV broadcast of the Bears’ first preseason game Thursday night and in a local radio interview Tuesday — followed Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s declaration Monday that it would be “near impossible” for legislation providing public money for a new lakefront stadium to pass the legislature this fall.
“The focus is the Museum Campus downtown. I still think that’s the most beautiful piece of property in the country, where lake meets architecture downtown,” Warren said during the ABC/ESPN broadcast of the Bears’ Hall of Fame Game Thursday night. “We are the largest landowner in Arlington Heights. We own 326 acres. So that still is an opportunity cause we do own the land. But our focus right now is to do everything we can on the lakefront.”
The former Arlington Park racetrack remains vacant after the venue closed in 2021 and structures were torn down. The Bears purchased the 326-acre property for $197.2 million in February 2023.
Joe Lewnard/jlewnard@dailyherald.com, February 2024
Warren’s latest interview happened within the hour of a letter surfacing online from 40 Illinois business leaders — Warren and Bears Chairman George McCaskey among them — to Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign that touted Pritzker as an ideal running mate. Also signing his name to the letter was Related Midwest developer Curt Bailey, who similarly has lobbied Pritzker and state lawmakers for stadium subsidies — this for a new Chicago White Sox ballpark at The 78 redevelopment in the South Loop.
During an interview on ESPN 1000 radio Tuesday, Warren name dropped several politicians — including Pritzker, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Arlington Heights Mayor Tom Hayes — as he expressed confidence that “at the appropriate time, we will be able to come together and work something out.”
When asked if the NFL franchise will have finalized the lakefront stadium location within the year, Warren said, “I am confident that the Chicago Bears will have a new stadium that we’ll be able to play in.”
“Waddle and Silvy” show co-host Marc Silverman, also a sports columnist for Shaw Local and the Daily Herald, then asked if it was time to make the proverbial halftime adjustments and switch the primary stadium choice back to Arlington Heights.
“It’s not time to adjust now,” Warren replied. “Illinois has so many positive areas. Optionality exists here not only for the stadium, but just in business. So sometimes when you have options, you think it has to be ‘either, or.’”
“But we have great political leaders,” he continued. “I love the folks in Arlington Heights. But to answer your question, we haven’t reached that point now where it’s time to, you know, take a detour and go to Arlington Heights.”
The Bears’ $5 billion Arlington Park redevelopment plan, unveiled in the fall of 2022, was shelved amid a change in team leadership and a dispute with three local school districts over property taxes.
Courtesy of Chicago Bears
Warren met Pritkzer for breakfast July 16, in what was the first meeting since the General Assembly’s spring session concluded in May. Lawmakers left Springfield without a vote being taken — or even a formal bill making it to the floor — on the Bears’ ask for subsidies to help bankroll a new domed stadium south of Soldier Field.
Both Pritzker, and now Warren, have downplayed the significance of the meeting.
“We aren’t at that point yet where it becomes a ‘negotiation,’” Warren said during the radio interview. One of the things that I think it’s important — and I’ve tried to do with all of our political and business leaders — is to get to know them. Because one thing I found out: the better you get a chance to know someone personally, business becomes easier.”
The Bears’ lakefront stadium proposal, unveiled in April, calls for a new domed structure surrounded by public athletic fields and green space. The current Soldier Field seating bowl would be removed, but the century-old colonnades would remain.
Courtesy of Chicago Bears
Since the reveal of the three-phased, $4.7 billion stadium and lakefront campus redevelopment project in April, Warren said staff at Halas Hall and consultants continue to refine the plan design and work through financial complexities. The Bears have pledged to contribute about $2 billion for the stadium, but want public money to cover the rest of the costs.
But Warren said the stadium project is “exactly where I thought we would be,” and his goal remains to have shovels in the ground in 2025 and open in 2028.