The Arlington Heights Village Board Tuesday authorized two resolutions for consulting contracts to investigate the financial and site visitors impacts of redeveloping Arlington Park Worldwide Racecourse into a brand new Chicago Bears stadium.
Although no deal has been finalized, the Bears have entered into a purchase order settlement with Churchill Downs, homeowners of the racecourse, to purchase the property.
Hiring the consultants is a definite step ahead within the village’s tenuous back-and-forth with the soccer crew, which on Tuesday launched new plans for an leisure, retail, housing and sporting district it will develop on the 326-acre property.
The 2 resolutions authorized Tuesday permit for agreements between the village and, individually, Hunden Strategic Companions and Sam Schwartz Consulting LLC. The village would pay Hunden about $118,000 to conduct an financial affect research, and Schwartz would obtain about $85,000 to take a look at transportation impacts. Every of the research is expounded to redeveloping the property. Although the resolutions stipulate that the consultants are being employed by and can work for the village, cash to pay for the consultants will come from the Bears.
Village Trustee Jim Tinaglia mentioned the consulting settlement was a “belt and suspenders to assist shield all of us right here.” He mentioned any redevelopment of a website as giant as Arlington Worldwide Racecourse would benefit an identical consulting contract.
“It is a large enough mission that we'd completely do that, whether or not it have been the Lions or the Tigers or the Bears,” he mentioned. “And the funds which might be getting used are getting used out of the escrow funds of the petitioners. So there is no such thing as a tax cash getting used.”
The village finance director defined that Arlington Heights can pay the consultants from the village’s capital initiatives fund however be reimbursed by the soccer crew.
In accordance with the memo outlining the request for a marketing consultant, village employees need Hunden Strategic Companions, which has places of work in Chicago, to judge the monetary evaluation of the Bears’ redevelopment proposal, do the marketing consultant’s personal evaluation of the plan and consider “all mission parts to make sure the proposed redevelopment leads to a internet optimistic fiscal affect upon Arlington Heights.”
The site visitors consulting settlement requires Schwartz, a Chicago-based planning, engineering and design agency, to judge public transit choices for the location, on- and off-site parking prospects, the capability of the location and its rapid environment, and to make suggestions.
In a press release accompanying the plans and renderings, crew officers say building would create a minimum of 48,000 jobs and have a $9.4 billion financial affect on the area. As soon as accomplished, the crew says the mission would create nearly 10,000 everlasting jobs and have a $1.4 billion monetary affect on Chicagoland.
Per its web site, Hunden Strategic Companions, which is led by CEO Rob Hunden, has consulted on racecourse-based initiatives in Baltimore and on the Chicago White Sox’s Assured Price Discipline.
Tinaglia requested Planning and Improvement Director Charles Perkins to “take the Bears out of this equation,” as he requested if the village would nonetheless have interaction a marketing consultant for a special potential redeveloper.
Perkins mentioned sure.
Trustee Mary Beth Canty mentioned she would stay “agnostic” on whether or not the Bears ought to come to the village till officers answered two questions: “Who's paying for this and the way are we shifting the folks round?”
However Canty mentioned she welcomed the site visitors consulting contract as a approach to get extra details about the potential transit affect of a stadium.
“That is visceral for me,” she mentioned, noting that she lives a few mile and a half from the proposed stadium location. “I, myself, am frightened.”
Village Supervisor Randy Recklaus mentioned the consulting agreements have been meant to make sure that if the Bears do transfer ahead with redeveloping the location, which is beneath a purchase order settlement, that the village would see an actual profit to internet hosting them.
“There have been unsuccessful stadium contracts,” he mentioned. “We wish to guarantee that we’re one of many ones that's profitable.”
The Bears are scheduled to maintain a neighborhood assembly at John Hersey Excessive College Thursday at 7 p.m. to reply residents’ questions on their lately launched plans.
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