The Bears appear determined to fulfill their decades-long quest for a domed stadium in Arlington Heights, even though they’re several first downs away from the legislative goal line. Which begs the question: If the $8.8 billion NFL franchise does leave Chicago, what should become of Soldier Field? Should the city that visionary planner Daniel Burnham urged to “make no little plans” seize this a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reclaim precious lakefront park land and undo the much-ridiculed spaceship structure atop the historic colonnades that cost Soldier Field its landmark status? Or should the lakefront stadium that former Mayor Richard M. Daley rebuilt and salvaged after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, with a backloaded debt structure that won’t be fully repaid until 2032 simply be marketed more aggressively to other sporting and entertainment events? Chicago Park District Superintendent Carlos Ramirez-Rosa said there’s plenty of time to figure out the future of the stadium he calls Chicago’s “premier sports and music venue downtown.” Bears President Kevin Warren still needs to convince the Illinois General Assembly to pass and Gov. J.B. Pritzker to sign stalled “mega-development” legislation that would allow the team to negotiate an annual “payment-in-lieu-of-taxes” with local school districts and municipalities in and around the old Arlington International Racecourse site. “Even if the Bears were to break ground in Arlington Heights, they are many, many years off from moving to any new stadium should that even materialize,” Ramirez-Rosa said. “We’ve got several years to engage in a very robust, participatory planning process where we work closely with the mayor’s office and bring together civic leaders downtown, local alderpeople, local state elected officials, residents of the South Loop and Loop and the chambers of commerce that have a stake in this,” Ramirez-Rosa added. “We bring them all to a table and plan for the future. Those types of decisions require a lot of consultation with the public. It requires coalition.” Soldier Field’s role as money-maker Last year, Soldier Field generated $54 million in revenue for the Chicago Park District, $7 million of it from rent paid by the Bears. This year’s take is expected to rise to $57 million. Former Park District Superintendent David Doig argued that the lakefront stadium can be turned into an even bigger money-maker without the Bears. Bears “have a black-out” from late August through the end of December that prevents the Park District from hosting football games at Soldier Field that could “tear up the turf,” Doig said. “Think of all the Big Ten schools that are within an hour and a half or two hours of Chicago and the fact that we have a huge concentration of Big Ten alumni. You could host Big Ten college football games every week,” Doig said. “You could have lacrosse there. You could have rugby. The fastest-growing sport in the world is cricket. You could do cricket matches at Soldier Field. There’s all kinds of things you could do. You could put down mats and have giant pickleball tournaments.” Joe Mansueto, the billionaire owner of the Chicago Fire FC, has agreed to spend $650 million of his own money to bankroll a 22,000-seat, soccer-only stadium on the vacant South Loop parcel known as “The 78.” The Fire’s move from Soldier Field to the South Loop would deprive the Park District of roughly $4 million more in annual rental income. But Doig said that can be replaced as well, by other international soccer events, luring the women’s soccer team now known as the Stars — while sealing off the upper deck and pushing fans closer to the field — and by marketing Soldier Field even more aggressively as a concert venue. Lollapalooza at Soldier Field? “Taylor Swift sold out three nights in a row. Beyonce sold out three nights with 65,000 or 70,000 people. You don’t have another stadium in the Chicago market that can seat that many people. There’s something about being outdoors in the middle of summer on the lakefront that is unique,” Doig said. “There’s ways to rework the parking and maybe have some smaller venues, create more of a festival grounds and move Lollapalooza down there. Maybe use Soldier Field as the main stage for Lollapalooza. You could even host the marathon there. Instead of the marathon having to be right in the middle of Grant Park, it could be at the museum campus.” Marc Ganis, a Chicago-based sports consultant who has advised NFL teams on stadium issues, loves the idea of creating a permanent festival site along the lakefront that would make Summerfest in Milwaukee look like small potatoes. That would allow Huntington Pavilion on Northerly Island to be removed. “I would leave Soldier Field up. It would cost way too much to tear it down. But I would open it up and green much of the asphalt around it. Connect it more to Northerly Island. Create this beautiful festival area that could then be used for major events east of Lake Shore Drive,” Ganis said. “Green up the parking lots. Make it a large open space that can be used for Lollapalooza and other events without adversely impacting the rest of the city the way festivals currently do. It would cost very little money. I can’t think of a major city that has anything like this.” If the Bears move to Arlington Heights, Ganis said the Park District would be well advised to “move away from sports.” With the new Ryan Field in Evanston and the new Fire stadium proposed for the 78, Ganis said the Chicago area will be saturated with sports venues to a point that Soldier Field would no longer “serve a sports interest.” Erma Tranter, former executive director of Friends of the Parks, spearheaded the legal challenge that tried and failed to stop Daley from choosing the political path of least resistance by rebuilding Soldier Field at a cost of $660 million after turning public park land over to a private business. Tranter views the Bears’ planned departure for Arlington Heights as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to correct what she views as Daley’s “quick-and-dirty mistake”— by “removing the spaceship, keeping the colonnades and finding a public use” for a Soldier Field that is returned to the classic design that earned the lakefront stadium’s landmark status. Soldier Field, a rich history In 1919, the commission that preceded the Chicago Park District hired the architectural firm of Holabird & Root to design a stadium that would serve as an event showcase and “playground for the people.” The stadium known as Grant Park Municipal Stadium opened on Oct. 9, 1924. One year later, the stadium was renamed Soldier Field at the request of Chicago Gold Star Mothers. Soldier Field came to be known as a premier venue. Crowds that topped 100,000 jammed into the lakefront stadium, and were drawn to events that included the 1926 Army-Navy Game and the 1927 rematch boxing rematch between Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney. During World War II, more than 150,000 people were on hand to hear a wartime address by then-President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. “This kind of land is so valuable, it really warrants its return to something that looks good and is usable by the broader public,” Tranter said. “It can’t happen immediately. You’ve got bonds to pay off. But Chicago has done magnificent things in the past. They’ve been costly. But they’ve done them well. This gives Chicago an opportunity to undo a dramatic mistake that was made 25 years ago. It’s the one chance we have to do something right on the lakefront.” Brian Gladstein, the current president of Friends of the Parks, agreed with Tranter, even though it would take a public-private partnership to make it happen. “We should think big about what a modern city should look like with green space, access to water and improve the quality of life for everybody in our city. Let’s get people excited about a plan that’s best for the people of Chicago,” Gladstein said. “Here’s an opportunity to do that and we should not be shortsighted. We should be thinking through something that’s not going to last 20 years like this last stadium, but something that’s going to last for a hundred years.” Ramirez-Rosa said plenty of groundwork has already been laid for “re-imagining” and improving access to the lakefront and the museum campus adjacent to Soldier Field. Former Mayor Lori Lightfoot did some of it in 2022 when she offered to put a dome on Soldier Field, at a potential cost of $2.2 billion, in a desperate attempt to keep the Bears in Chicago or save face if they leave for Arlington Heights. Mayor Brandon Johnson took the planning process further when he convinced Warren to shift his focus from the Bears-owned site of the old Arlington International Racecourse to building a dome on a parking lot south of Soldier Field. That plan included $1.5 billion in infrastructure improvements. “There’s a lot of ways that you can increase the public’s ability to reach Soldier Field while, at the same time, reaching our other tenants: the Adler Planetarium, the Shedd Aquarium, the Field Museum,” Ramirez-Rosa said. “All of those are important partners of the Chicago Park District, and all of them would benefit from infrastructure improvements around Soldier Field and getting to Soldier Field.”