The amazing trick that's being pulled here is somehow making Arlington Heights look like the sober, rational place for the team to be, rather than the reality of that being an insane gamble on putting a facility like this so far from downtown amid low-density residential.
The stadiums in NY, DC, even LA are nowhere near that remote.
It doesn't matter one iota how far it is from downtown. Not one bit. What matters is how far it is away from the season ticket holders and various options for transportation. 80% of the season ticket holders are from the North, Northwest and Western Suburbs.
Arlington Heights is a stones throw away from Schaumburg, Mt. Prospect, Rolling Meadows, Barrington, etc. It's also flanked by 53/290, 90, 355, 294, which covers the entire region, then you have Metra(Mass Transit) right there. You also have O'Hare airport right which is flanked by an enormous amount of hotels. There's no shortage of hospitality that's already there!
If you bury this in Indiana, you've moved it 20 miles FURTHER away from than the portion of the fanbase that actually buys the product.
Now, the issue with Arlington Heights is the amount of infrastructure costs that would be associated with it, thus the reason for the $900M push. It is a very well to do area, but it's an area that's older because they've resisted improvements. They've wanted to maintain its "charm". They freak out if ComEd comes in to trim a tree that's close to a power line. The stadium would be surrounded by Arlington Heights Road, Algonquin Road and Euclid Avenue. The streets would have to be widened, there would have to be additional exit/entrance ramps coming from the expressway, etc. The Bears have already paid for the survey to be done on the traffic patterns, deemed it to be ok.....with 900M infrastructure help from the state.
Hammond is a better deal for the Bears in the short term. They're willing to pick up the tab on some of the stadium cost and they're willing to guarantee taxes. Indiana is just a better state to do business in. Illinois is dominated by the Chicago Teacher's Union that's bankrupted the state, so they can't balance a budget. Thank the Daley family for a terrible deal, years back, that had the amount of escalators built into it. That toothpaste will never go back into the tube.
All that said, in the long run, staying in the state and appeasing the sprawling population north and west will yield the better results. Ultimately, it's when the McCaskey's plan on selling the team that will determine the outcome.
One final fyi....they still haven't finalized a location in Hammond and NOTHING had been tested with regards to it being environmentally accepted. That is a chore and an expense. They have absolutely no clue what's under the ground. In Arlington Heights, the land that they currently own....it's passed every test and it's been already paid for.
They have another meeting with the State of Illinois next week. Let's see what comes of it.
