Related Midwest has thrown a new idea into the increasingly crowded competition to land the Chicago Bears' next stadium, pitching a lakefront venue at the former South Works steel site on the city's Southeast Side. The proposal arrives as an architectural rendering showing the developer's vision for the project, even as the team continues to consider nearby Hammond.
A New Pitch Enters a Crowded Field
As reported by Crain's Chicago Business, Related Midwest is proposing a lakefront stadium for the Bears at South Works, and the company is depicted in an architectural rendering of that proposed facility. The dossier underlying Crain's report does not establish the plan's cost, acreage, financing, construction timeline or ownership structure, nor does it indicate how the Bears have responded to this specific pitch.
A Bridgeport stadium plan was also floated in an effort to keep the Bears in Chicago. Sterling Bay CEO Andy Gloor informally pitched Bears President and CEO Kevin Warren on the plan, with Carl Williams present, according to the Chicago Tribune. The Bears declined to pursue that plan, the team told the newspaper.
The Bridgeport Alternative That Didn't Stick
That Rate Field concept was ambitious on paper: a $5.8 billion initial stadium and campus spread across 200 acres, at least 100 of which would have needed to be acquired, per the same Tribune account. Potential funding sources included $1.5 billion in federal rail infrastructure financing, $400 million in tax increment financing, and additional money from the Bears, naming rights and personal seat licenses, the paper reported a week ago.
The plan envisioned construction south of Rate Field while the White Sox kept playing at their current ballpark, pending a proposed relocation to the South Loop. It also would have likely displaced much of the Chicago Housing Authority's 343-unit Wentworth Gardens complex, the Tribune reported. The Illinois Sports Facilities Authority owns Rate Field and its surrounding surface parking lots, meaning the site currently sits free from property taxes, according to the same report. Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, whose renderings were tied to the concept, said the designs were conceptual rather than a formal project and that the firm had not pitched any such plan to local officials.
Bears Still Say Their Focus Is Elsewhere
None of it appears to have shifted the Bears' stated priorities. The team has said it remains focused on pursuing a $2 billion stadium across the state line in Hammond or in suburban Arlington Heights, and considers the Rate Field site unsuitable in part because of its limited size, the Tribune reported a week ago.
The board vote to proceed with Hammond plans followed a legislative session in which the General Assembly adjourned in June without acting on a measure.
Against that backdrop, Related Midwest's South Works pitch joins a growing list of Chicago-based alternatives floated by developers hoping to keep the Bears from crossing into Indiana. Whether the team gives the lakefront concept any more consideration than it gave the Bridgeport plan remains to be seen.
