Rebuild Aims to Revive Chicago's Aged Arena
$606 million project to provide suites to Bears and parkland and parking to city
by Jeffrey Steele

Anyone who has witnessed a Chicago Bears or Chicago Fire game at Soldier Field in recent years knows why there is a massive rebuilding effort going on at the ancient stadium.

Built in 1924, the old Soldier Field was literally falling apart by the time the last Bears game was played there on Jan. 20, 2002. The foundation, underside of the seating bowl and some of the walkways were crumbling. The concession areas and toilet facilities were wholly inadequate to meet the needs of huge Bears crowds, and the area around the stadium was blanketed by a blacktop parking lot that had long been viewed as a major eyesore.

Soldier Field was a place that offered almost no amenities to the hundreds of thousands of spectators who visited yearly, said Joseph Caprile, principal of the Chicago-based LW+Z Joint Venture working on the Lakefront Development Project. (The joint venture brings together two architecture firms: Chicago-based Lohan Caprile Goettsch Associates, with primary responsibility for the master plan and North Burnham Park project, and Boston-based Wood & Zapata, with primary responsibility for the architectural design of the Soldier Field stadium.)

"Concessions at best were simple, meaning they offered your basic beverages and foods in an environment that didn't consider very strongly the fans or event going on," Caprile said. "People in line at the concessions didn't feel like they were part of the event. And the restroom facilities, maybe three quarters had running water. The rest were your provincial Porta-Pottey."

Project Rationale

The decision to rebuild the stadium resulted from a coming together of different agendas. From the standpoint of the Chicago Bears, the team had never boasted a stadium built just for football, and old Soldier Field lacked the revenue-producing club lounges other National Football League stadiums offer, said Alice Hoffman, president of Chicago-based Hoffman Management Partners LLC, the developer's representative for the Chicago Bears.

"The NFL rules for revenue sharing require teams to split half their revenue from general admission seats with visiting teams," Hoffman added. "However, they do not have to split club and suite revenue with visiting teams. If most of the teams in the league have clubs and suites, the Bears are at a disadvantage. So the Bears were third to last in the league in revenues."

From the city's vantage point, the project offered a chance to create a lakefront jewel nestled in a parkland setting rather than a parking lot. Along with that, much-needed parking would be added not only for Bears games but also for the popular destinations in the nearby Museum Campus, such as the John G. Shedd Aquarium and the Field Museum. By placing spaces for 3,300 cars underground, the city would be able to enjoy a net gain of 1,000 spaces over the 2,300 that existed before.

The budget for the project is $606 million. Of that sum, the Bears will pay $200 million. The remaining $406 million will be derived from the sale of Illinois Sports Facilities Authority bonds, backed by revenues from the existing Chicago hotel-motel tax.

The Chicago Bears will be responsible for any cost overruns on the project. The construction timeline extends from January 2002 through September of this year, with opening night Sept. 29 against the rival Green Bay Packers.

The project is creating approximately 3,000 construction jobs and generating about $135 million in contracts for minority- and women-owned businesses. The Chicago Park District will own the stadium and net at least $10 million annually from the stadium.

Inviting People In

Soldier Field will keep its trademark colonnades and its name, and will be open and accessible to the public all year long, making it a destination not just for football and soccer games but for other outings as well. As part of the project, parkland is being created that will include a children's garden, sledding hill, hard-surface sports area and open spaces for special events and other gatherings.

A key aspect of the project is the transformation of Soldier Field into a true veteran's memorial, said Barnaby Dinges, president of Evanston, Ill.-based Dinges Gang Ltd., a communications consultancy hired by the Chicago Bears and the Chicago Park District to manage communications on the Lakefront Redevelopment Project.

"The old Soldier Field was words on a wall," Dinges said. "Not to diminish that, but all you could do was read them. They've created three very distinct veterans memorials at the new stadium."
When fans enter Gate O on the south end of the stadium, they will encounter a 15-ft.-high statue of a World War I doughboy foot soldier, backed by a granite wall with an inscription.

At the north end of the stadium, a 20-ft.-high, 200-ft.-wide water wall will slope from the stadium down to McFetridge Drive. Gracing the wall will be 10 3-ft.-wide bronze service medallions of the armed services branches.

"You'll see the memorial whether you're walking along the sloped promenade from the Field Museum to the new stadium, or whether you're walking out of the parking garage," Dinges said.

The third and final memorial will be a large bronze relief standing next to McFetridge Drive, which will appear to be a picture but will actually be a three-dimensional sculpture. Depicting a soldier with an American family, the relief will feature an inscription about the reasons the armed forces fight for this country.

Whether or not there's an event scheduled at Soldier Field, the public will be able to visit the colonnade concourse level and walk around the entire stadium, to enjoy views of the lakefront, Museum Campus and into the stadium, Caprile said.

"Soldier Field will be a place where people will actually want to hang out," Dinges added. "At the old Soldier Field, the game would end, and it would be like rats running out of a sewer, because there was nothing to keep you there. Now, there will be huge lawns, a sledding hill, places for people to sit and gather, the colonnades - places you'll want to linger. If you go to an event, you'll have the best experience you'll ever have at a stadium in Chicago. And if you never go to an event, you're going to be able to enjoy the parkland and parking."