Bears don’t need taxpayer help for move to Arlington Heights

Forgive Bears fans for being transfixed by the last week’s NFL draft. The first game of the 2023 season won’t kick off until September, but that doesn’t matter to a fan base starved for whatever morsel of hope of a turnaround the draft might provide.

In Chicago’s northwest suburbs, however, taxpayers and taxing bodies are preoccupied by a very different Bears game plan – the playbook for enlisting as much taxpayer help as possible to build a new, stadium-anchored megadevelopment at what was Arlington International Racecourse.

Most residents of Arlington Heights and surrounding suburbs have reacted enthusiastically to the prospect of the Bears coming to their patch of the Chicago region. What they’ve been less enamored with is the Bears’ insistence that taxpayers subsidize nonstadium components of the project, including new roadways, utilities and other infrastructure needed to make it happen.

A couple of legislative ideas outlining what that taxpayer help might look like have been bounced around. The latest comes from state Rep. Marty Moylan, D-Des Plaines. His bill dangles a carrot in front of his fellow Chicago lawmakers – a $3-per-person tax on tickets to Bears games at the new stadium and at events within the megadevelopment. That revenue would help pay off debt from the renovation of Soldier Field 20 years ago.

But his bill also would freeze the property tax assessment on the 326-acre racecourse site. That’s precisely the component that has rankled northwest suburban taxpayers and taxing bodies. Local school districts, for example, aren’t crazy about forsaking the revenue coming from incremental increases in property taxes from the site, particularly since the project’s residential buildings likely will add more schoolchildren to their classrooms.

A similar tax subsidy setup for the Bears’ project was proposed earlier this year by state Sen. Ann Gillespie, D-Arlington Heights. Assessments on the Bears’ site would be frozen for 40 years, and the team and Arlington Heights village officials would negotiate yearly payments to local school districts and other taxing bodies on top of the property taxes calculated from the frozen assessment.

Would those payments suffice? And why not let the myriad taxing bodies affected by the plan have a seat at those negotiations? Gillespie’s bill has gone nowhere in Springfield; Moylan’s measure may suffer the same fate.

His bill mirrors Gillespie’s proposal in significant ways, and Gov. JB Pritzker has expressed skepticism about leaning heavily on state taxpayer help for what essentially is a multibillion-dollar company’s move from Chicago to the suburbs.

“I honestly do not think that the public has an obligation to fund, in this major way, a private business,” Pritzker said in February after Gillespie’s bill was introduced. We don’t always agree with the governor, but in this case, he’s spot on.

The Bears have calibrated their pitch carefully, pledging that not a penny in taxes will go toward the construction of the stadium. The team will take on that price tag. The Bears’ ask for taxpayer help is tied to the mixed-use side of the project – the hotels, office space, stores and residential buildings. They want subsidies to pay for the sewer lines, roads, lane additions and other infrastructure that would support that part of the development.

But the Bears aren’t saying they’ll build just the stadium if they don’t get taxpayer help for the rest of the development. Their vision entails a package deal – the stadium and the mixed-use component. Up at Halas Hall, the view is that taxpayer help isn’t optional. It’s required.

We realize that the team’s quest is in its early stages. But we caution the Bears against trying to forge ahead without all of the stakeholders on board. That includes local school districts, other taxing bodies and most of all, taxpayers. And we urge the team to build a convincing case that there’ll be a market for the mixed-use portion of the project – the part that will depend on taxpayer subsidies. Far too many times, Illinoisans have had to swallow higher taxes for boondoggles that yielded little or no benefit for themselves and their families.

And the Bears should also remember that Chicago Mayor-elect Brandon Johnson hasn’t closed the door on the possibility – however remote – of the Bears staying at a revamped, even domed, Soldier Field. When Johnson assumes office in mid-May, the Bears’ new team president and CEO, Kevin Warren, should find time for a sit-down with the new mayor, and, at the very least, listen to what he has to say.

The Bears have their work cut out for them on the field. But the task of justifying taxpayer help for their megadevelopment in Arlington Heights? That’s more like a Hail Mary.

– Chicago Tribune