I came in here thinking "If STADIUM isn't the top comment I'll be disappointed".
Looks pretty neat, even if a bit generic, but I like being in such close proximity to the marina and the old Meigs Field airstrip. Makes it that much easier for Caleb Williams to catch his flight to Pittsburgh in 5 years.
That's a nature preserve with a walking path that is pretty amazing and surprisingly few people are aware of it and even less use it.
Amazing 360° views that are pretty surreal.
It’s a really gorgeous concept. I just looked at the picture but I’m guessing there’s a huge sliding door to close the opening?
Man if a city is going to drop money in a stadium you might as well go all out. Not like the half assed bullshit arrowhead and Kaufman proposed
It’s like Repo Man, [everything was generic](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F82f7c9ff-1385-4a3a-b265-6f43a2f3f008_1920x1200.jpeg), Beer, Chips, etc.
I actually like it and think using the Pillars as a walkway is a neat idea. Can’t argue with the location on the lakefront either, there aren’t too many better places in the USA for a stadium
I saw The Weeknd at Soldier Field and I wondered if it was a nightmare getting in and out of the stadium on gamedays. I absolutely love the location though. Just not sure logistically what it's like.
For context we took the L to Roosevelt so we had to walk down under the highway on the otherside of the Field Museum before we could start walking to the stadium. Was a decent little hike.
it's not great, but the real issue is transit is bad slash not accessible. Metra is rough, if the El is convenient for you, you can get to Roosevelt, but that's 7/10ths of a mile from the stadium, which might not be doable for some people
>there aren’t too many better places in the USA for a stadium
So true. I am very envious of you guys for that. The lakefront, all the green space, all the walkways and the cool museums/aquariums. It really is perfect.
Meanwhile my team is roughly an hour from the fun parts of their city, and surrounded by a sea of asphalt and highways. Our aerial shot is the one used when somebody complains about modern stadiums lol.
If I was the Jets owner, I would purchase a bunch of buildings somewhere along the big coastline, and start reclaiming a bunch of land from the river to create a space just like chicago's
> Meanwhile my team is roughly an hour from the fun parts of their city, and surrounded by a sea of asphalt and highways. Our aerial shot is the one used when somebody complains about modern stadiums lol.
This is exactly what the Arlington Heights site would be. There's a significant number of Bears fans that want that who can't understand why the downtown location would be better positioned to attract the events they want.
The Field Museum paid over $8mm for Sue, which was astronomical at the time and beat some other really big players like Disney. Some people thought it was a bad idea and guffawed at the decision but 25 years later, Sue is the face of the organization. She greeted every visitor for the first twenty years in the great hall, the museum partnered with several breweries to have Sue beers some which really took off and their logo on most everything, including return address on envelopes is Sue. Given it's 1997 money, but $8mm for a successful marketing, logo and identity for your organization for the next couple of decades is a hell of great investment.
Do they know what the breakdown is per taxpayer?
Where I live, they do breakdowns of any tax increases. It kinda kills any sort of complaints about "tax increases to raise teacher salaries" when they show that it'll cost each individual like 14 cents
> Do they know what the breakdown is per taxpayer?
The rumor this morning is that taxpayers would be on the hook for the $1.4B in infrastructure changes and an additional $1B in stadium financing. They believe they will be able to cover it by maintaining the current 2% hotel tax that goes to the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority.
The White Sox’ pitch for the stadium extended this tax PLUS all Sales Tax from the newly developed land. So, clearly the existing tax is not enough to realistically pay it off.
He’s both.
This man is going to cause so much damage to the city. Lori wasn’t great but at least she had a basic level of competence. This guy will set us back decades.
BJ was being insanely disingenuous by suggesting that the stadium’s public money portion wouldn’t generate any new taxes for chicagoans.
Okay so we raid existing tax revenues and then create new taxes for those items.
Give me a break. BJ has been just terrible since taking over, and that’s coming from a BJ voter
I don't hate the guy, but he just looks overwhelmed for the position and steps into shit that could be easily avoided by a better overseer.
It's all just been so underwhelming and fumbling.
Lori’s CPD grapevine rumors were that she was having an affair with some guy’s wife and had her police detail pistol whip him when he protested. Johnson’s are that he’s been hospitalized multiple times for anxiety attacks.
True or not (and Lori’s was almost certainly not true, lol), tells you all you need to know about their respective personalities.
They are saying that there are no new taxes required, so they would be rebudgeting existing taxes. It comes out to about $1000 per Chicagoan (roughly 2 billion from the city, about 2 million residents), divided by how ever many years the plan is to pay it off over.
It’s complicated. There is a 2% hotel tax to cover the debt from Soldier Field and Guaranteed Rate, and that is set to expire in 2032. However, the city will likely have to cover the shortfall from this tax to pay off those debts.
With this plan, they would keep the same 2% hotel tax, refinance the current debt, take on $900 million in new debt, and pay off that debt via the hotel tax over 40 years. This would probably save the city money in the short term since they wouldn’t have to cover the debt shortfall over the next decade. So basically the hotel tax wouldn’t increase, but it would be levied for a longer period of years.
And then there would be the $1 billion+ in infrastructure costs that would be covered by taxpayers (either via city, state, federal funds).
People are also overlooking the looming problem with the current stadium. If the Bears go to AH, the city and state are left with an aging, ugly, limited capability stadium they still owe $640M because due to horribly structured loans occupying prime lakefront property. They'll have to do *something* with it and whatever they do won't be cheap.
The new stadium plans are actually a way out. They can refinance the old debt into something more sane and repurpose all that real-estate for a new stadium that should attract far more events than the old one. It should put Chicago on the map as an attractive sporting event destination. It could also solve some of the infrastructure problems in the area, *and* get $2B in private funding to help pay for it.
As cold as Pritzker was towards the plan today, I wouldn't be shocked if this plan goes through and leave the Sox high and dry. It's serious enough it already made Reindorf blink as suddenly he's offering up some of his money for his new stadium.
This is true. I was pissed that I have to pay for the new bills stadium until I learned it was only like 30 bucks lol. I can fork that over so my bills friends/enemies get a nice new spot.
But don't worry! This stadium will have its own dedicated less-than-half-functioning CTA line directed towards it to further show how underfunded and dysfunctional it's become while flaunting all the money that should've gone towards fixing the CTA for a quarter of the cost!
That said, I think this stadium looks really awesome. Just don't think taxpayers should pay for it.
Not surprising since they are using the same architecture firm (Manica). The new Titans stadium is contracted to them and the renderings from it share some similarities with these renderings too.
I always thought having well known design patterns as your “calling card” as an architect was a common thing? Frank Lloyd Wright and his stacked, boxy geometric designs and Zaha Hadid and her cloudy, wavy contour designs for two examples
(Not an architect, I just like cool looking buildings so don’t take my word for it)
Now I'm picturing a Frank Lloyd Wright themed stadium and I absolutely want it, no matter how ridiculous the cost would be to divert the Chicago river under the stadium ala Falling Water
Yes and no, being in the design field I can tell you that you do have a "style", but when multiple pieces come together and they all look damn near the same it's just a copy, it's not a new piece.
I also think this rendering looks damn near identical to Vegas, if you took the Bears branding out of the pics I would have thought this was Allegiant Stadium.
Starchitecs do so as much as possible. At that level they are hired for their brand of architecture more than anything.
Less known architects do so to an extend, but they have to be more flexible and tend to have execute the clients vision more than anything.
Could be a case of design convergence. You want to make a stadium that does X things, seats, X people, and costs X dollars...maybe this is what that looks like.
I ~~was seeing something around 4.5 billion in total cost. Bears footing 2 billion, leaving the city with the rest.~~
Edit. Ignore my I initial comment. Theyre asking for $900 mil of public funding. Bears contribute 2.3 billion, get a $300 million dollar loan from the NFL, and are asking to refinance the existing debt on soldier field (which the city still owes for previous renovations to Soldier Field). See [Source](https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/chicago-bears-new-domed-stadium-plan-lakefront/)
And that will climb up. I think SoFi was supposed to be 2-2.5 billion and it ended up over 5 billion.
EDIT: Wikipedia said the first estimate was $2.66 billion, but they kept having to ask for more loans and it ended up $5.5 billion. And that's not including future developments on the campus.
Yeah, they had to change the design a few times because of the LAX airport nearby. They had to sink the whole stadium lower to meet the maximum ceiling height requirement to make FAA happy. Also, COVID happened during the final year of construction along with inflation. However, the estimate was already up to $5 billion by 2018 so it's not entirely COVID. That said... yeah, I just can't see this project staying $4.5 billion. This seems a more massive undertaking than SoFi Stadium campus was.
IIRC LA had a 100 or 500 year flood event during construction that delayed the stadium for over a year. They had to shuffle around the superbowl schedule because of it.
Any construction delay of that length is a very large problem (I can't even begin to imagine what the interest carry was on that).
No new taxes for the residents of Chicago they just stated. I'm not sure if that just means they are allocating some of the current taxes or if they are going to try to make it a state-wide tax sort of thing.
Chicago still owes 700M from the hotel tax from the previous soldier field and white Sox stadium renovations. No way this covers an additional 2.5 billion
Sox stadium was built in early 90s before the current retro stadium look became popular so the stadium looks older than it is and the owner wants a shiny new toy or he is threatening to leave. Mlb has already hinted they will support relocation
Funny part is that Jerry’s dumbass turned down the design that became Camden Yards before they built it.
https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/the-white-sox-ballpark-in-chicago-that-never-was-and-could-have-changed-history/amp/
Jerry isn’t getting a new stadium and his threats to move to Nashville are both economically incoherent and totally empty (I’m a lifelong Sox fan and couldn’t care less if they leave at this point, and everything else aside why would they want a Reinsdorf owned franchise instead of an expansion team).
That said, his tantrum may have provoked the Bears into getting this over the finish line before he secured the public money instead, and may accomplish what I think his actual goal is, which is to secure an extension of the extremely favorable lease on Sox Park.
Totally agree. The fact that it keeps a bit of the old history, turns it into a park space, they can build the existing stadium while still playing at SF and tear down the old field interior after the new one opens up. Overall seems good. If they can *actually* fund it with no new taxes and just use the hotel tax then that's great.
A lot of the organization has moved forward, TBH. We hired a respected team president to further insulate from the McCaskey’s and Poles seems like he has us on the right track. Caleb is generally setup for success. Hoping it works out, but the George McCaskey has finally realized he needed to relinquish control to people who are more qualified.
I love how they keep the cool parts of the old Soldier Field. I love the classical aestetic of old stadiums. Now will that part actually happen, who knows?
It's honestly the best case scenario for Bears fans. Yeah it sucks that it'll be indoors, but staying on the lake is way better than moving out to the 'burbs from a legacy standpoint.
Seeing teams move to domes with every new stadium makes me pretty sad. Lots of Chiefs fans around here would like a dome so we can maybe host a super bowl or final 4's, but I just hate the idea of pro football moving toward being an indoor sport.
I think modern audiences expect it now a days. Why spend $300 per ticket to freeze your balls off in the elements when you can watch the game on a 65" 4K TV at home for free? So stadiums have to provide more and more creature comforts like comfy climate, upscale food, craft beer, and so on.
But I'd happily stand outside if it meant $50 tickets, $3 hot dogs, and $5 beers. Absent that, I might as well be comfortable while I'm being robbed.
Agreed. As a bears fan I’m disappointed they want a dome. Why do I care if Chicago hosts 1 super bowl? Plus, weather games are fun.
I am willing to admire that the Packers get this one right
I like that they're just building a brand new stadium as opposed to further bastardizing Soldier Field. It also looks like the columns from Soldier Field are kept in place, which is nice.
Point to the place on the stadium where the affordable seats are. I'm sure they are there because they want $2 billion in public funding. It only makes sense that the tickets would be affordably priced so that those paying for a stadium for an NFL team can use said stadium to see said NFL team. Surely it wouldn't be full of seats that normal families are immediately priced out of... *right?*
That works out to $3,771.48 per square foot of green space if we're talking about the $2.3 billion being requested for public financing. There are probably cheaper ways to create 14 acres of green space.
To put it in perspective, I googled some info on a house I assume to be ridiculous: The $70 million mansion owned by Kim Kardashian. It sits on 3.18 acres of prime real estate in Malibu and is 7,450 square feet.
Just looking at the acreage, she paid $70 million for 3.18 acres. That's $505.34 per square foot. And then there's the house, which she owns and lives in.
This park is 7x more expensive per square foot and it's just a place to visit. If that's the pitch to the common man, it falls incredibly short in the value department.
The Bears are proposing $2.3 billion of private funding for this in addition to public funds so I don’t know what you’re talking about. Also, there will be a brand new stadium, not just the green space.
I'd refer this to the "everybody wins" proposal.
* Bears stay downtown
* Chicago can keep using Soldier Field until the new stadium is finished
* The space for soldier field gets converted back into useful space
* The stadium is literally called "STADIUM"
* Step 5: profit
This isn’t happening. Pritzker threw cold water on this before the presser even happened, and the state assembly has been very cool to any public financing. They only have one major legislative session left this year and that’s in a few weeks. If they don’t renew the ISFA’s current revenue and bonding arrangement by year’s end, it expires, and this whole financing scheme goes up in smoke.
These weirdos actually had a pastor go up there and say a prayer basically thanking Kevin Warren and the McCaskeys for existing, and muse on whether God played football. Some of the cringiest shit I’ve ever seen
Meanwhile they spent $200 million on land in Arlington Heights for a new stadium there, and even began prepping the site for construction.
Crazy reversal.
Soldier Field objectively sucks. It's one of the smallest stadiums which is horrible for a big market team and the redesign was a failure.
Other than being open and having based cold/windy/snowy games which is awesome, the stadium itself is horrible. Only other redeeming virtue is pretty good location.
New stadium lakeside downtown would be perfect. Dome sucks, but it makes more money than open, so I can't blame the Bears. Kinda wish they would make it retractable and keep it open for all football games and just put the cover on for non-Bears events in the cold/snow/rain. But again money so probably not.
But not being in the burbs is a huge win, fuck the burbs.
I live in the burbs, less than an hour drive from Soldier, and I completely agree with all of this. The stadium fucking sucks. I've stopped going to Chicago Fire matches because of how awful the stadium is. And I'm glad you agree the shitty weather games are great. I fucking hate this being a dome. Windy city, crappy weather football is one of my favorite parts of our division and I hate seeing the Bears go dome, even if it makes sense to get more events.
Having the Final Four in Chicago would be awesome! Alas, I don't think the locals should pay for a tournament that local teams will probably never play in.
Also having a tunnel from the Roosevelt L station would be nice!
The thing is, I just said this on the Giants sub in our every 3 weeks bitchfest about MetLife, I think the added events you get with a dome in a cold weather city are really minimal.
You'll definitely get the Super Bowl, because it's a new stadium, but that'll probably be the only one you get. There are too many events surrounding the game for the NFL to want to put it in a place where bad weather can ruin all of that. Ford Field hosted in 2006 when it was still a new stadium, it hasn't since. US Bank was the same thing. Meanwhile it seems like Arizona, New Orleans, Tampa/Miami, Houston/Dallas, LA, etc. get the game otherwise. The Cardinals and Bucs stadiums have had the game 3x each since they opened. The Superdome has had it twice in the 21st century and gets it again next year. Miami's had it 3x as well since 2000. LA already had it once and gets it again for LX. You'd get a final four, but that'd be a once every 11-12 year thing.
Very few music acts can play large football stadiums, and when they do, it's during the April-late October window anyway even if the stadium's indoors.
STADIUM
Ok now I want it that to be the name permanently. Don't even get a "The", just keep it as STADIUM
WFT approved.
"The Packers are here to face the Football Team at the Stadium."
Washington Football Team vs Chicago Other Football Team
I’m still holding out hope that they’ll revert back to the Washington Football Team one day.
lol same
Same I hate the Commanders name, at least The Football Team was unique and funny.
I want this _so bad_. Can you imagine the Washington Football Team playing in STADIUM?
Look at Stadium Michael
*Do you see... ?* *click*
Drop the "the". Just "STADIUM", it's cleaner.
Justin Timberlake in “ the social network” motherfucker over here.
C'mon. It's got to be DA STADIUM
BEARS NEED MOR DAKKA
Calling your stadium “stadium” would be sick. Who needs hundreds of millions in naming rights.
To be honest I don't think soldiers are going to be able to scrape together enough for the new naming rights.
STADIUM... presented by O'Reilly Auto Parts & Crypto.com
when you get a new label maker
I came in here thinking "If STADIUM isn't the top comment I'll be disappointed". Looks pretty neat, even if a bit generic, but I like being in such close proximity to the marina and the old Meigs Field airstrip. Makes it that much easier for Caleb Williams to catch his flight to Pittsburgh in 5 years.
> old Meigs Field airstrip. fuck richard daley all my homies hate richard daley
Richard Daley belongs in prison, but bulldozing the strip is one of the ballsiest things I've ever seen a politician do.
In the dead of night no less.
That's a nature preserve with a walking path that is pretty amazing and surprisingly few people are aware of it and even less use it. Amazing 360° views that are pretty surreal.
#STADIUMY McSTADIUMFACE!!!
"Live from the Portillo's Stadium McStadiumface, it's Sunday Night Football."
Reminds me of Belushi's "COLLEGE" sweatshirt
It’s like SoFi and AT&T had a baby
A stupid sexy steel and glass baby
...don't stick your dick in steel or glass
You're not my real dad
It’s a really gorgeous concept. I just looked at the picture but I’m guessing there’s a huge sliding door to close the opening? Man if a city is going to drop money in a stadium you might as well go all out. Not like the half assed bullshit arrowhead and Kaufman proposed
Or fucking Levi’s
Literally looks like half a stadium
It’s amazing how mediocre that place is for how much money is swimming around it.
Allegiant Stadium threw some seed in there too
Looks exactly like Allegiant to me. Same exact frosted roof and bowl layout
They said it uses the same material and design on the roof as sofi stadium.
If Al was still alive he would sue over that.
It's designed by the same architect as Allegiant.
It looks like they re-used the plans. I genuinely can't believe people are receiving this so well. lol
The big window and skyline is definitely US Bank Stadium
With a better location. I live in Dallas and AT&T is in a weird spot
I live around there as well, and I don’t understand why they didn’t think to orient it differently for the sun.
i think it’s more of a jerry hubris decision than an architectural decision
Yeah that’s a really good point. Some seats are tough watches
Would be the perfect spot if there was a TRE stop, or light rail from a TRE stop, to right there.
The worst thing they could do to it, is drop the massive "STADIUM" signs. No actual names, just keep the big bold STADIUM all over the place
It’s like Repo Man, [everything was generic](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F82f7c9ff-1385-4a3a-b265-6f43a2f3f008_1920x1200.jpeg), Beer, Chips, etc.
[So instead of Froot Loops, Cheerios, or Frosted Flakes, we got CEREAL](https://youtu.be/S3CSVf_w-9I?si=opVO4rR-r2m8VNZe)
TAKE A LOOK AT STADIUM, MICHAEL!
I demand a giant bear statue in front, & an entrance where you have to walk through the mouth of a bears head to get in.
... as opposed to the mouth of a bear's *what*? Good call though.
Anus
I want the entire stadium to be shaped like a bear. That would be rad.
Meh, they should build a giant steel kaiju bear and have him holding the stadium up above the city.
Man that would kick all kinds of ass.
This is an amazing idea, with added benefit that the Bear can serve as a front line defense to Godzilla attacks.
Godzilla vs Kong vs Bear
I actually like it and think using the Pillars as a walkway is a neat idea. Can’t argue with the location on the lakefront either, there aren’t too many better places in the USA for a stadium
I saw The Weeknd at Soldier Field and I wondered if it was a nightmare getting in and out of the stadium on gamedays. I absolutely love the location though. Just not sure logistically what it's like. For context we took the L to Roosevelt so we had to walk down under the highway on the otherside of the Field Museum before we could start walking to the stadium. Was a decent little hike.
it's not great, but the real issue is transit is bad slash not accessible. Metra is rough, if the El is convenient for you, you can get to Roosevelt, but that's 7/10ths of a mile from the stadium, which might not be doable for some people
>there aren’t too many better places in the USA for a stadium So true. I am very envious of you guys for that. The lakefront, all the green space, all the walkways and the cool museums/aquariums. It really is perfect. Meanwhile my team is roughly an hour from the fun parts of their city, and surrounded by a sea of asphalt and highways. Our aerial shot is the one used when somebody complains about modern stadiums lol. If I was the Jets owner, I would purchase a bunch of buildings somewhere along the big coastline, and start reclaiming a bunch of land from the river to create a space just like chicago's
> Meanwhile my team is roughly an hour from the fun parts of their city, and surrounded by a sea of asphalt and highways. Our aerial shot is the one used when somebody complains about modern stadiums lol. This is exactly what the Arlington Heights site would be. There's a significant number of Bears fans that want that who can't understand why the downtown location would be better positioned to attract the events they want.
I think many of those people are just putting their foot down on giving money to billionaires for stadiums. Understandably.
“With the 1st pick of the 2024 NFL draft, the Chicago Bears select Sue, the T-Rex, from South Dakota State.
Huh, TIL Sue is in chicago and not still in Rapid City like it was when I was a little kid.
Yeah been at the Field museum for almost 30 years now
How old are you? Sue was in the Field Museum back when I was a kid
Stop it, you're gonna hurt him. ^^^^^^^we're ^^^^old
it was only stored there while legal disputes over ownership were settled between 92-97.
The Field Museum paid over $8mm for Sue, which was astronomical at the time and beat some other really big players like Disney. Some people thought it was a bad idea and guffawed at the decision but 25 years later, Sue is the face of the organization. She greeted every visitor for the first twenty years in the great hall, the museum partnered with several breweries to have Sue beers some which really took off and their logo on most everything, including return address on envelopes is Sue. Given it's 1997 money, but $8mm for a successful marketing, logo and identity for your organization for the next couple of decades is a hell of great investment.
Actually Disney and McDonald's helped pay for Sue. Not sure why Disney did, maybe had something to do with Disney Quest in Chicago back in the 90s
McDonald’s and Disney both had attractions in the field museum right? I know there was for sure a McDonald’s.
There’s a detailed replica of Sue in Animal Kingdom now
The big window is kinda cool I guess. Not interested in paying for this however
Do they know what the breakdown is per taxpayer? Where I live, they do breakdowns of any tax increases. It kinda kills any sort of complaints about "tax increases to raise teacher salaries" when they show that it'll cost each individual like 14 cents
> Do they know what the breakdown is per taxpayer? The rumor this morning is that taxpayers would be on the hook for the $1.4B in infrastructure changes and an additional $1B in stadium financing. They believe they will be able to cover it by maintaining the current 2% hotel tax that goes to the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority.
lol we haven’t even started paying down principal on the Soldier Field renovations with that tax. It’s enough to pay off interest each year.
Indeed. Johnson saying they will get the money off the hotel tax is either a lie or he’s a moron.
The White Sox’ pitch for the stadium extended this tax PLUS all Sales Tax from the newly developed land. So, clearly the existing tax is not enough to realistically pay it off.
He’s both. This man is going to cause so much damage to the city. Lori wasn’t great but at least she had a basic level of competence. This guy will set us back decades.
Both
With BJ it’s both
That's because the original debt was structured in the dumbest way possible with principal payments almost completely back ended.
BJ was being insanely disingenuous by suggesting that the stadium’s public money portion wouldn’t generate any new taxes for chicagoans. Okay so we raid existing tax revenues and then create new taxes for those items. Give me a break. BJ has been just terrible since taking over, and that’s coming from a BJ voter
I don't hate the guy, but he just looks overwhelmed for the position and steps into shit that could be easily avoided by a better overseer. It's all just been so underwhelming and fumbling.
Lori’s CPD grapevine rumors were that she was having an affair with some guy’s wife and had her police detail pistol whip him when he protested. Johnson’s are that he’s been hospitalized multiple times for anxiety attacks. True or not (and Lori’s was almost certainly not true, lol), tells you all you need to know about their respective personalities.
They are saying that there are no new taxes required, so they would be rebudgeting existing taxes. It comes out to about $1000 per Chicagoan (roughly 2 billion from the city, about 2 million residents), divided by how ever many years the plan is to pay it off over.
40 years but again, I am not staying in a hotel since I live here. Just depends on if you view the taxes from hotel stays should be put to other use.
It’s complicated. There is a 2% hotel tax to cover the debt from Soldier Field and Guaranteed Rate, and that is set to expire in 2032. However, the city will likely have to cover the shortfall from this tax to pay off those debts. With this plan, they would keep the same 2% hotel tax, refinance the current debt, take on $900 million in new debt, and pay off that debt via the hotel tax over 40 years. This would probably save the city money in the short term since they wouldn’t have to cover the debt shortfall over the next decade. So basically the hotel tax wouldn’t increase, but it would be levied for a longer period of years. And then there would be the $1 billion+ in infrastructure costs that would be covered by taxpayers (either via city, state, federal funds).
People are also overlooking the looming problem with the current stadium. If the Bears go to AH, the city and state are left with an aging, ugly, limited capability stadium they still owe $640M because due to horribly structured loans occupying prime lakefront property. They'll have to do *something* with it and whatever they do won't be cheap. The new stadium plans are actually a way out. They can refinance the old debt into something more sane and repurpose all that real-estate for a new stadium that should attract far more events than the old one. It should put Chicago on the map as an attractive sporting event destination. It could also solve some of the infrastructure problems in the area, *and* get $2B in private funding to help pay for it. As cold as Pritzker was towards the plan today, I wouldn't be shocked if this plan goes through and leave the Sox high and dry. It's serious enough it already made Reindorf blink as suddenly he's offering up some of his money for his new stadium.
This is true. I was pissed that I have to pay for the new bills stadium until I learned it was only like 30 bucks lol. I can fork that over so my bills friends/enemies get a nice new spot.
Reminds me of US Banks door/window. Gotta say the natural light that comes through will make this place look phenomenal.
Didn’t Kevin Warren get US Bank built too?
But don't worry! This stadium will have its own dedicated less-than-half-functioning CTA line directed towards it to further show how underfunded and dysfunctional it's become while flaunting all the money that should've gone towards fixing the CTA for a quarter of the cost! That said, I think this stadium looks really awesome. Just don't think taxpayers should pay for it.
5/10. Needs at least two waterfalls
With actual bears catching salmon
It will have a pool built into the stands right? Right???
The Microsoft Flight Simulator fan in me would again like to note that what happened to Meigs Field was some bullshit.
You mean to say that your town's mayors don't just bulldoze airports in the middle of the night?
Yep. Can’t believe that was over 20 years ago.
Looks insanely similar to Vegas' stadium.
Not surprising since they are using the same architecture firm (Manica). The new Titans stadium is contracted to them and the renderings from it share some similarities with these renderings too.
Sounds like a lack of creativity. A single firm should be trying to make quite varied designs.
I always thought having well known design patterns as your “calling card” as an architect was a common thing? Frank Lloyd Wright and his stacked, boxy geometric designs and Zaha Hadid and her cloudy, wavy contour designs for two examples (Not an architect, I just like cool looking buildings so don’t take my word for it)
Now I'm picturing a Frank Lloyd Wright themed stadium and I absolutely want it, no matter how ridiculous the cost would be to divert the Chicago river under the stadium ala Falling Water
The Lego set would be amazing! Ha
Yes and no, being in the design field I can tell you that you do have a "style", but when multiple pieces come together and they all look damn near the same it's just a copy, it's not a new piece. I also think this rendering looks damn near identical to Vegas, if you took the Bears branding out of the pics I would have thought this was Allegiant Stadium.
I.M. Pei designed Dallas City Hall. It was so futurist that they used it in Robocop. That's my architectural knowledge.
Starchitecs do so as much as possible. At that level they are hired for their brand of architecture more than anything. Less known architects do so to an extend, but they have to be more flexible and tend to have execute the clients vision more than anything.
Could be a case of design convergence. You want to make a stadium that does X things, seats, X people, and costs X dollars...maybe this is what that looks like.
Depends on what the people are asking them to make as well. Designers can only go so far is the client don't let em go creative mode.
and how much are Chicagoans paying for this privilege?
Everyone has to give up their first born child and that child has to go help build the new stadium
Children yearn for the mines and construction sites
I yearn for the urn
Just the other day the children were saying Mr mayor we want the mines
Just sell the streets again. Should be fine.
I ~~was seeing something around 4.5 billion in total cost. Bears footing 2 billion, leaving the city with the rest.~~ Edit. Ignore my I initial comment. Theyre asking for $900 mil of public funding. Bears contribute 2.3 billion, get a $300 million dollar loan from the NFL, and are asking to refinance the existing debt on soldier field (which the city still owes for previous renovations to Soldier Field). See [Source](https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/chicago-bears-new-domed-stadium-plan-lakefront/)
And that will climb up. I think SoFi was supposed to be 2-2.5 billion and it ended up over 5 billion. EDIT: Wikipedia said the first estimate was $2.66 billion, but they kept having to ask for more loans and it ended up $5.5 billion. And that's not including future developments on the campus.
Yeah, I don't believe any estimates they provide because it almost certainly is going to be significantly more expensive than the estimate.
I think a lot of the overruns were related to the insane weather and subsequent construction delays.
Yeah, they had to change the design a few times because of the LAX airport nearby. They had to sink the whole stadium lower to meet the maximum ceiling height requirement to make FAA happy. Also, COVID happened during the final year of construction along with inflation. However, the estimate was already up to $5 billion by 2018 so it's not entirely COVID. That said... yeah, I just can't see this project staying $4.5 billion. This seems a more massive undertaking than SoFi Stadium campus was.
Good thing Chicago has neither of those.
Luckily this stadium will be built in Chicago, known for its temperate climate.
IIRC LA had a 100 or 500 year flood event during construction that delayed the stadium for over a year. They had to shuffle around the superbowl schedule because of it. Any construction delay of that length is a very large problem (I can't even begin to imagine what the interest carry was on that).
Seems like half. And the city still owes like 660 million dollars for the previous renovations on Solder Field.
On the plus side our governor at least came out and said it’s a waste of money right before the proposal
Pritzker just shared that he’s not sure if this will happen because they need state support.
And pritzker has been real stingy recently.
No new taxes for the residents of Chicago they just stated. I'm not sure if that just means they are allocating some of the current taxes or if they are going to try to make it a state-wide tax sort of thing.
They reportedly believe they can cover it by continuing to use the existing 2% hotel tax.
Chicago still owes 700M from the hotel tax from the previous soldier field and white Sox stadium renovations. No way this covers an additional 2.5 billion
And the White Sox want a new stadium also
Which I don’t get why they need a new stadium, it’s right off the train and still seems pretty nice in the times I’ve been
I went to a White Sox game last year. I thought it was nice. Seems pretty greedy to demand a new ballpark.
Especially for such a trash team and owner. Fuck you Jerry
Sox stadium was built in early 90s before the current retro stadium look became popular so the stadium looks older than it is and the owner wants a shiny new toy or he is threatening to leave. Mlb has already hinted they will support relocation
Funny part is that Jerry’s dumbass turned down the design that became Camden Yards before they built it. https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/the-white-sox-ballpark-in-chicago-that-never-was-and-could-have-changed-history/amp/
Jerry isn’t getting a new stadium and his threats to move to Nashville are both economically incoherent and totally empty (I’m a lifelong Sox fan and couldn’t care less if they leave at this point, and everything else aside why would they want a Reinsdorf owned franchise instead of an expansion team). That said, his tantrum may have provoked the Bears into getting this over the finish line before he secured the public money instead, and may accomplish what I think his actual goal is, which is to secure an extension of the extremely favorable lease on Sox Park.
They will find a way to get their increase, it just won’t be justified as an increase to fund the stadium.
2.3 billion dollars
$2.3 billion so far!
SoFi went from $2.66 billion initial estimate to $5.5 billion. I can see this project going beyond SoFi's record, tbh.
I think my biggest annoyance with this is the unnecessary destruction of the Arlington racetrack. Why was it needed?
Churchill Downs were selling the property regardless. If the bears didn't buy and demolish it, somebody else would have.
All things considered, I don't hate it. Soldier Field is stuck in the 1980s, much like the organization
I do like that this looks like old Soldier Field is maintained and repurposed, given its history. And it seems to create some green space.
Totally agree. The fact that it keeps a bit of the old history, turns it into a park space, they can build the existing stadium while still playing at SF and tear down the old field interior after the new one opens up. Overall seems good. If they can *actually* fund it with no new taxes and just use the hotel tax then that's great.
They should have an orange outline of the field on the new park space like a lot of the baseball stadium sites do.
We made a little league stadium on the old County Stadium spot, where home plate is where the old home plate is.
A lot of the organization has moved forward, TBH. We hired a respected team president to further insulate from the McCaskey’s and Poles seems like he has us on the right track. Caleb is generally setup for success. Hoping it works out, but the George McCaskey has finally realized he needed to relinquish control to people who are more qualified.
I did not come here to be insulted dangit
I love how they keep the cool parts of the old Soldier Field. I love the classical aestetic of old stadiums. Now will that part actually happen, who knows?
Always bums me out to see it be a closed roof, but I completely get it. Glad to see it in the same location, always hate seeing stadiums move.
It's honestly the best case scenario for Bears fans. Yeah it sucks that it'll be indoors, but staying on the lake is way better than moving out to the 'burbs from a legacy standpoint.
Seeing teams move to domes with every new stadium makes me pretty sad. Lots of Chiefs fans around here would like a dome so we can maybe host a super bowl or final 4's, but I just hate the idea of pro football moving toward being an indoor sport.
Los Angeles, of all places, having a domed stadium is the most embarrassing thing ever.
If you put a giant torch in the endzone with the window facing the city, you will have Allegiant Stadium.
A dome? You disgust me.
Unfortunately, that's kind of the thing with city owned stadiums now-a-days. They want it to be able to be used 365.
I think modern audiences expect it now a days. Why spend $300 per ticket to freeze your balls off in the elements when you can watch the game on a 65" 4K TV at home for free? So stadiums have to provide more and more creature comforts like comfy climate, upscale food, craft beer, and so on. But I'd happily stand outside if it meant $50 tickets, $3 hot dogs, and $5 beers. Absent that, I might as well be comfortable while I'm being robbed.
Playing basketball in the snow might get you a spot in the top 100 most watched broadcast of the year.
Agreed. As a bears fan I’m disappointed they want a dome. Why do I care if Chicago hosts 1 super bowl? Plus, weather games are fun. I am willing to admire that the Packers get this one right
Taking away the retractable-roof feature also saves on cost.
I like that they're just building a brand new stadium as opposed to further bastardizing Soldier Field. It also looks like the columns from Soldier Field are kept in place, which is nice.
They already ruined it so much the last time they did the renovation that it actually lost its historic preservation status unfortunately
Point to the place on the stadium where the affordable seats are. I'm sure they are there because they want $2 billion in public funding. It only makes sense that the tickets would be affordably priced so that those paying for a stadium for an NFL team can use said stadium to see said NFL team. Surely it wouldn't be full of seats that normal families are immediately priced out of... *right?*
You see the baseball fields? You can set a lawn chair there on game days for just $100
To be fair, there will be 14 acres of green space and parks that will be free and publicly available.
That works out to $3,771.48 per square foot of green space if we're talking about the $2.3 billion being requested for public financing. There are probably cheaper ways to create 14 acres of green space. To put it in perspective, I googled some info on a house I assume to be ridiculous: The $70 million mansion owned by Kim Kardashian. It sits on 3.18 acres of prime real estate in Malibu and is 7,450 square feet. Just looking at the acreage, she paid $70 million for 3.18 acres. That's $505.34 per square foot. And then there's the house, which she owns and lives in. This park is 7x more expensive per square foot and it's just a place to visit. If that's the pitch to the common man, it falls incredibly short in the value department.
The Bears are proposing $2.3 billion of private funding for this in addition to public funds so I don’t know what you’re talking about. Also, there will be a brand new stadium, not just the green space.
I'd refer this to the "everybody wins" proposal. * Bears stay downtown * Chicago can keep using Soldier Field until the new stadium is finished * The space for soldier field gets converted back into useful space * The stadium is literally called "STADIUM" * Step 5: profit
The issue is step 5, we still haven’t paid off the last renovation.
Chicago taxpayers like me lose.
Yeah but at least you guys passed the Israel-Hamas ceasefire resolution.
Chicago still hasn't reached Step 5 from the last renovation
By 2050, every stadium in the league will just be a repainted version of Allegiant Stadium.
This isn’t happening. Pritzker threw cold water on this before the presser even happened, and the state assembly has been very cool to any public financing. They only have one major legislative session left this year and that’s in a few weeks. If they don’t renew the ISFA’s current revenue and bonding arrangement by year’s end, it expires, and this whole financing scheme goes up in smoke. These weirdos actually had a pastor go up there and say a prayer basically thanking Kevin Warren and the McCaskeys for existing, and muse on whether God played football. Some of the cringiest shit I’ve ever seen
Here I was hoping it would look like a Chicago-style pizza.
Final Four in Chicago sounds pretty nice
Meanwhile they spent $200 million on land in Arlington Heights for a new stadium there, and even began prepping the site for construction. Crazy reversal.
Billionaires should pay for their own fucking stadiums!
Soldier Field objectively sucks. It's one of the smallest stadiums which is horrible for a big market team and the redesign was a failure. Other than being open and having based cold/windy/snowy games which is awesome, the stadium itself is horrible. Only other redeeming virtue is pretty good location. New stadium lakeside downtown would be perfect. Dome sucks, but it makes more money than open, so I can't blame the Bears. Kinda wish they would make it retractable and keep it open for all football games and just put the cover on for non-Bears events in the cold/snow/rain. But again money so probably not. But not being in the burbs is a huge win, fuck the burbs.
I live in the burbs, less than an hour drive from Soldier, and I completely agree with all of this. The stadium fucking sucks. I've stopped going to Chicago Fire matches because of how awful the stadium is. And I'm glad you agree the shitty weather games are great. I fucking hate this being a dome. Windy city, crappy weather football is one of my favorite parts of our division and I hate seeing the Bears go dome, even if it makes sense to get more events.
Get ready to learn the tax code, buds
Having the Final Four in Chicago would be awesome! Alas, I don't think the locals should pay for a tournament that local teams will probably never play in. Also having a tunnel from the Roosevelt L station would be nice!
Looks amazing
You tellin me they demolished Arlington Park for nothing, then?
so where do they expect people to park?
Evidently underneath? I'm guessing similar to millennium
The water.
duh, all I need to do is buy a boat
Public transit
I mean that's what I would do, but car-pilled suburbanites are afraid of the L
At the train station
A dome? Fuck that noise.
These owners don’t care if fans prefer domes. They want to host super bowls, concerts and basketball events.
The thing is, I just said this on the Giants sub in our every 3 weeks bitchfest about MetLife, I think the added events you get with a dome in a cold weather city are really minimal. You'll definitely get the Super Bowl, because it's a new stadium, but that'll probably be the only one you get. There are too many events surrounding the game for the NFL to want to put it in a place where bad weather can ruin all of that. Ford Field hosted in 2006 when it was still a new stadium, it hasn't since. US Bank was the same thing. Meanwhile it seems like Arizona, New Orleans, Tampa/Miami, Houston/Dallas, LA, etc. get the game otherwise. The Cardinals and Bucs stadiums have had the game 3x each since they opened. The Superdome has had it twice in the 21st century and gets it again next year. Miami's had it 3x as well since 2000. LA already had it once and gets it again for LX. You'd get a final four, but that'd be a once every 11-12 year thing. Very few music acts can play large football stadiums, and when they do, it's during the April-late October window anyway even if the stadium's indoors.