Chicago Bears in Bridgeport? New stadium proposal unveiled

If the Chicago White Sox move to the South Loop near 78, well, there are questions about what would replace right field. Brett Boganski is live on the South Side. Now, Brett, this exact scenario is actually something that we talked about here on Fox Chicago last month. Maybe it's just a little bit of inspiration, Lauren, especially after one Chicago sports columnist had pitched this idea for years. And of course, that is a story that you could find on our website. That's fox32chicago.com. And it seems... As if at least one Chicago architecture firm is sold on the idea of the Chicago Bears moving to 35th and Shields. That's if the Chicago White Sox move to the 78th. So within the last 24 hours, the Chicago architecture firm Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill released a concept of a Chicago Bears stadium right here at 35th and Shields. The Illinois Sports Facilities Authority owns the land. The Bears wouldn't have to worry about paying property taxes. In a social media post from the architecture firm, the caption says in part, our ambition is to create a new home for the Bears that is also a catalyst for lasting neighborhood investment. So this includes a mixed-use entertainment district. I spoke with Alderwoman Nicole Lee earlier today, who represents Bridgeport and parts of the South Side. She's a fan of the renderings and the potential business opportunities for the area, but she did say she prefers to keep the White Sox. Right here on the south side. But she feels like gaining the Bears would be a good thing. But I asked her about the challenges to make this potential Bears stadium a reality. The rendering that I saw had the stadium sort of more towards the south end of the ISFA property along Pershing Road. And there are some public housing, there's a church there, as well as a few other things that would have to be relocated. This is why I think we're a long way off. This is definitely like a vision. I wouldn't call it a plan as it is because many more people will need to be involved in these conversations. I did reach out to the Chicago Bears for comment earlier today. I'm still waiting to hear back. But just within the last few hours, Cranes came out with an article today about how there is much closer talk between Illinois lawmakers and the Chicago Bears about a potential stadium deal that could keep the Bears. Right here in Illinois. Of course, we've been reporting for the last few months that there have been meetings been taking place between Governor J.B. Pritzker as well as NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell being involved in these meetings with the Chicago Bears, which included Bears minority owner Pat Ryan. Of course, any kind of legislation has the potential of being heard during the veto session, which happens to start in two and a half weeks. We're live on the south side. Brett Boganski, Fox Chicago. All right Brett, thank you so much. There really is a lot to talk about here, a lot to break down. So let's bring in Adam Semel, a partner with the architecture firm making this pitch. Thanks for joining us tonight. Hi Lauren, thanks for having me. So first of all, where did this idea come from? Did the Bears approach you about designing this stadium or was this something that your firm just kind of developed independently? We've been part of Chicago for 90 years. So we think about the city a lot. We're also sports fans, huge Bears fans. And when the news broke a couple months ago that the White Sox might be leaving, we started to think about the idea of what could happen to Rayfield and the land around it. And it seemed like a great idea to think about whether or not the Bears could actually come here and make it their new home, keep the team in Chicago. So the first thing we did was we tested it, and we looked at the sites to the north, we looked at the sites to the south, and there's some existing users, but the stadium actually fits there. So if it's something that the Bridgeport community and everybody impacted by it really embraced, we think it could be a viable possibility. What putting the stadium there allows is really a sports venue to anchor a new kind of neighborhood around the development that we're really excited about as well. Yeah, talk a little bit more about that because we've seen several potential homes for the Bears, right? So what makes this location a better fit than anywhere else in Illinois or Hammond? It's actually a fantastic location. There's a stadium there today. There's incredible transit opportunities. The CTA, the Metra and the Dan Ryan all have great access. There's parking there today and there's space. What there's also adjacent just east of the Dan Ryan is more than 30 acres of mainly publicly owned land that could be thought of as part of the redevelopment. So with the stadium going in and thinking about some of the best practices today around the additional economic development that can come with that, thinking about vibrancy on game day but also non-game day, other entertainment uses, things like housing, creative office, amenities for the local neighborhood, Bridgeport, surrounding neighborhoods, things like supermarkets and It's in retail and F&B. It's a really exciting opportunity to bring new investment and a new kind of stadium concept to Chicago. Definitely a lot of opportunity, a lot of possibilities. We do know that there's public housing there now. How would you build this without kicking out people who live there? Have you had any conversations with anybody over there? We haven't had any conversations. What we did was our goal is just to inspire Chicagoans about what's possible and to identify that there really is a possibility to keep the bears here in Chicago on a site that is great for it in many ways. But one of the challenges absolutely is the existing uses on the site. Now a lot of it's parking lots, but the Wentworth Gardens homes is there as well. And our hope would be that a community-led process would include all the stakeholders impacted by it, especially those most directly impacted by it, and that the economic development and the vision of it is big enough and large enough to include anybody impacted by it and make a great outcome for all the stakeholders involved. What about Amtrak's proposed facility in that area? How would your design accommodate that project, or would you have to kind of give way for the other? They're adjacent to each other. There's not overlap, so we haven't thought about how that might be incorporated into it. I do think what the development around Ray could be is a buffer on that side of the Amtrak facility that's being contemplated, and that could be helpful to the impacts. Yeah, yeah. How close is this to becoming a reality here? Have you had any conversations with the Bears, the White Sox, city officials? We have not, but we know, as everybody does, that there's a lot of people talking about where the Bears are going to go and has been for many years. So our hope, as Chicagoans, as urbanists and architects and fans, is to put an idea out there, put some pictures out there that can really inspire what's possible. We did enough work to know that it fits, that a stadium is possible, a stadium that would be designed to accommodate a Super Bowl in the future. Um, and, and then we put some vision to it and we put it out there for everybody to see. And, you know, our hope is that it inspires people to see what's possible. The stakeholders that are needed to, um, come together are able to come together and make something like this happen. All right, Adam Semel, thank you so much for joining us tonight on the News at Five.