Susan wrote:This plan of moving a team from the centralized area of the city out to the suburbs is part of what caused decay in Detroit.
I don't think eight games a year in the city for the Bears is making a huge difference for the city of Chicago. People don't go to Bears games and do tons of other stuff downtown like they might cubs games, and there are only 8-9 a year, so even if they did it is minimal impact.
Here's what I've had to repeat multiple times that you guys keep glossing over:
-The Bears don't have the money to make this possible without state funding. I don't see how this would pass through considering the state's democratic control of the House, Senate and Governor is highly dependent on the Chicago Democratic Machine. If you think it'll pass as a ballot measure, I dunno man, you're not getting the people in the city to do it and you're not going to carry the rural areas either.
Well so far the they aren't getting the funding they need to do this in the city either, so this is a problem both ways. I would guess they could finance the building of a stadium if they can find cotenants and book other events, I noted that in an earlier post that if they want to own a stadium, to make it worthwhile, they need to be in the stadium owning business and make sure it is used. A stadium isn't going to be valuable enough to build for 8-9 games a year. They have to find ways to fill it with regularity to make teh decision work.
If they could do that, then they can probably get financing, but this might be a real challenge. The same is true with the city of Chicago of course. If they wnat to build a new 80k seat stadium somewhere they also need to figure out how to make it work financially.
-The idea behind a dome would be to attract major events so to provide an economic boon to the area for the winter months- Chicagoland is at a major disadvantage compared to the southern/western cities that vie for these events. NOLA has hosted 11 Super Bowls, Miami has hosted 11 - in those cities the game is an afterthought because the weather is so nice that it can be a winter party for the people going. It's an extremely uphill battle to make that viable here in the current location, and AH as a destination would be absurd.
Agreed. It's an uphill battle no matter where build a stadium, so this point is entirely irrelevant. You aren't getting a bunch of superbowls, at most you're getting one to celebrate a new stadium. No one wants to drop 10k on a superbowl trip to Chicago in February on the regular and being in AH doesn't make that equation considerably better or worse. You might want to make a new stadium a dome because then you can sell out that new stadium for concerts all winter long and other events, but it isn't going to be to attract superbowls. That's a non starter in either situation and thus irrelevant to the discussion.
-No infrastructure to support this - Having a massive stadium with no real public transit infrastructure in place is moronic. Talk bad about the current Soldier Field all you want, the Red Line is pretty close and there's bus lines that drop you off right in the Museum Campus.
Would be interesting to know how many people take public transit to Bears games. You have the metra to AH, but I agree the metra is only somewhat viable because of the difficulty getting to the metra station for many people also taking time. Certainly if you build a bigger stadium, you need better entrance/exit to it regardless of where it is. If we're talking 80k vs 53k, then the crowds and in/out is going to be a lot bigger problem regardless of where it is.
If the Bears are somehow able to get a crazy valuation on their franchise and weasel this together, I'd be shocked and I'd shut my trap on this because it's their money and they can do what they want with it. Maybe the potential casino changes the dynamics so much that it's possible but what you and the rest of the "I HAD TO SIT IN TRAFFIC" crew don't understand that this would be unprecedented and the McCaskey Family isn't exactly the type to be breaking ground on things like this.
I've already said I doubt they'd do it. I'm just not weirdly emotionally attached to whether they do or not.
To make it successful, they need to figure out a way to make an 80k seat stadium in AH profitable. 8 Bears games a year probably doesn't do that. I think the rest of the problems could probably be worked out over time. There's a ton of land there, you could actually build really intriguing things in the area to make it a great place to hang out over the next decade if it worked out. You'd also have 10 years to improve infrastructure for roadways. I'm not sure what options there are, but you could probably make 53 8 lanes wide up to Arlington park if you wanted to so you have a much wider entrance/exit to get to 90/290 which would be the primary routes home.
