Last year, the owner of the Chicago Fire, Joe Mansueto, announced that the MLS club was moving forward with plans to build a new stadium. While the costs varied between $650M and $750M, the stadium would be “privately-funded.” Local media and other news outlets praised Mansueto for not forcing costs onto taxpayers.
The Chicago Bears also forgot to add in the multiple billions that taxpayer would owe for stadium and infrastructure costs. This means that taxpayers would likely be paying 70% of the cost, if not more. What about the other sports teams wanting billions for their own stadiums? If the team had somehow gotten this deal to go through, the bill for taxpayers could have been so much higher than what the team claimed.
The Chicago Bears publicly admitted to buying land in nearby Arlington Heights to likely build a new stadium. However, it appears that a Chicago (technically Cook County) assessor is now holding the Bears accountable for future property taxes on this land. The county assessor raised the property tax value of this land by six times (applies to tax year 2022 and beyond), and that does not even include the construction that will be done.
