The effort to keep the NFL’s Bears in Chicago has led one developer to offer up an area on the city’s South Side.
In what some see as a Hail Mary proposal, Chicago’s Farpoint Development released renderings last week for an enclosed stadium and mixed-use development on the site of the old Michael Reese Hospital.
The plan calls for both a $3.2 billion, 75,000-seat stadium to house the founding NFL franchise as well as $356 million in parking and infrastructure to be financed privately. It also includes a park bridge to be built over Lake Shore Drive and 5 million square feet of ‘neighboring development opportunities.’
Farpoint said $600 million in public funding would be needed for ‘infrastructure work that government would normally fund.’
‘We believe in Chicago,’ Farpoint founding principal Scott Goodman said in a statement. ‘We have proposed an opportunity for the Bears to explore our site, which is viable and where a stadium can fit. And it fits on the south side of Chicago, bridging the gap to downtown.’
The Bears declined comment on Friday. They have rejected the 48.6-acre site in the past, saying it was too narrow and that commuter train tracks presented engineering challenges.
The plan calls for both a $3.2 billion, 75,000-seat stadium to house the founding NFL franchise as well as $356 million in parking and infrastructure to be financed privately
Farpoint said $600 million in public funding would be needed for ‘infrastructure work’
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The city acquired the Michael Reese site to serve as an Olympic Village for the 2016 Summer Games, which wound up going to Rio de Janeiro.
Bears president Kevin Warren has said repeatedly the focus is on building a stadium next door to Soldier Field as part of a transformation of Chicago’s lakefront museum campus.
That plan unveiled last spring calls for $3.2 billion for the new stadium plus $1.5 billion in infrastructure, potentially including a publicly owned H๏τel. It got a full-throated endorsement from mayor Brandon Johnson but a tepid reception from Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker and state legislators.
‘The city and the state are bankrupt,’ one fan moaned on X in response to the proposal.
The Bears also own a 326-acre tract of land in suburban Arlington Heights where a stadium could be built. They unveiled a nearly $5 billion plan that also called for restaurants, retail and more in September 2022, when they were finalizing the purchase of that site.
Several fans seemed optimistic about the proposal on the South Side.
‘This is a much better plan than the lakefront,’ one wrote on X. ‘It’s close to transit, doesn’t have legal issues with the Park Wackos and is accessible from the burbs.’
‘Better than in Arlington Heights,’ another wrote before adding: ‘We’re not going to pay for it.’
The Bears have played at Soldier Field since 1971. The team’s lease runs through 2033.
