Arlington Heights officers will take inventory of the Chicago Bears’ proposed redevelopment at Arlington Worldwide Racecourse and sit up for the mission’s subsequent steps Monday.
The plans for the location are nonetheless within the growth stage. Employees are set to current to the village board at Monday’s committee of the entire assembly details about the work they've already achieved relating to the mission.
“The imaginative and prescient and grasp planning for the property, in addition to implementation, will take a few years and won't occur in a single day, however represents a singular property in Arlington Heights and the area,” a report from the village Planning and Neighborhood Growth division states.
The division is presenting as a part of the village’s biannual apply of briefing newly seated and returning board members on the work of the previous time period and looking forward to coming priorities, a workers memo states. The Arlington Heights Fireplace division can be set to provide its report Monday night.
The assembly agenda additionally states that there can be an interdepartmental presentation on work associated to Arlington Park to date.
The Bears formally bought the 326-acre web site in February, greater than a yr after signing a $197.2 million buy settlement for the property. The staff’s opening volley for redeveloping the racetrack is a domed NFL stadium, leisure advanced and mixed-use business growth anticipated to price a minimum of $5 billion.
The planning division’s report states that division workers will work towards a “distinctive regional ‘certainly one of a sort’ redevelopment alternative that gives for the best and finest use for the property.”
The doc offers a rundown of milestones within the mission starting in Could 2021 and ending with the Bears finalizing their buy of the location.
“Redevelopment of 326 acres of prime actual property creates a middle of alternative for a dynamic and distinctive redevelopment,” the report states.
It additionally lists a well-known set of subsequent steps that echo village and staff leaders’ reminders that the mission remains to be in its earliest phases. The staff hasn’t but dedicated to constructing a stadium on the property, whereas village officers have reminded residents that any plan the Bears submit wants their thumbs-up.
Village officers are nonetheless awaiting the financial affect and transportation research they commissioned in October. The planning division report appears forward to utilizing the outcomes of these research, together with research from the Bears, to create a extra concrete imaginative and prescient for the location culminating in a complete plan for the racetrack to information eventual zoning choices. These broad milestones are in a nonbinding “predevelopment settlement” that lays out broad phrases on which the events anticipate to work collectively.
The report additionally spends some ink on the connection between a future Bears growth and the village’s present downtown. Native enterprise leaders and homeowners have greeted the prospect of an NFL stadium district with a mixture of optimism and concern. Some have nervous that a new business and retail district will “cannibalize” Arlington Heights’ beloved downtown space.
Others see the mission as an unalloyed alternative for the village and the area and have taken it upon themselves to construct bridges between the staff and the group.
Enterprise homeowners on each aspect of the difficulty have expressed religion in village officers to guard present financial pursuits, who in flip have mentioned they don’t wish to see an eventual growth replicate downtown Arlington Heights. The planning and growth division report reiterates that purpose.
“It has been made clear that one of many Village’s targets is ‘the power to reinforce and join the brand new growth to Downtown and never detract from it,’” the report states. “In different phrases, new growth ought to be complementary and synergistic to the Downtown.”
The fireplace division report forecasts the potential affect of a stadium district on the demand for emergency providers, although it notes that the nebulous plans for the location presently make it exhausting to pinpoint particular asks.
“The kind and measurement of the event across the stadium might affect the wants of the division by way of equipment, services, and personnel,” the doc states.
The report additionally refers to a current journey for some fireplace personnel to Los Angeles’ SoFi Stadium, meant to “determine potential operational impacts to the division.”
Police division brass additionally visited SoFi and a handful of different stadiums and developments to watch different police departments working video games and mass leisure occasions, Pioneer Press has reported.
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