Bears Stadium Mystery Solved: How Ted Phillips Bungled Everything From The Start
In 2021, former Chicago Bears team president Ted Phillips approached the city park district about possible upgrades to Soldier Field, including installing a sportsbook, to add another revenue stream. Not only were the requests refused, but they were also outright ignored. Phillips never received a reply. As a result, he and the McCaskey family dropped a bombshell when they placed a bid on the Arlington Racetrack property in Arlington Heights. It was the first time in decades the team had made a serious push to leave.
Three years later, the Bears remain stuck in neutral. Though they own the property outright, they haven’t been able to begin building their new stadium for several reasons. The state hasn’t been willing to help with infrastructure costs, and there hasn’t been any clarity on property taxes. According to Bill Zimmerman of Windy City Gridiron, it’s the latter issue that has caused this entire mess. Everything started because Phillips screwed up the process from the very beginning.
The way it was explained to me, when purchases of that magnitude are made, especially for a commercial property, the purchaser speaks with local and state governments about obtaining tax certainty on the property. The Bears, before purchase, should have arranged an agreed-upon tax for the empty lot, and what the tax should be with completed structures on the property.
They did not.
When the Bears purchased the property, the tax bill on the property jumped substantially. Arlington Racetrack had been paying approximately $3 million in property taxes, but that number jumped to around $10 million based on the purchase price. However, because the Bears were leveling the park and leaving it a vacant lot, they felt they should be paying less than even the race track was paying previously.
These conversations should have been had before the purchase, but they were not done, so when the government readjusted the property tax based on the new value, the Bears didn’t want to pay it.
True to form, Ted Phillips went in half cocked.
What person in their right mind purchases a property without having all the details in order? That seems like Lesson 101 in real estate. Phillips didn’t bother. He assumed the property taxes would be no issue since the Bears planned to tear down the racetrack after concluding the purchase. Illinois tax law doesn’t work that way. Of course, Kevin Warren was the one left cleaning up the mess. It’s difficult not to feel like Phillips bull rushed the process because he was about to retire and wanted one last thing to hang his hat on before riding off into the sunset.
Per usual, another of his big moves was a complete mess. Everything that man has touched over 20 years as team president has turned to mush. His renovations of Soldier Field in the 2000s were widely panned for the building’s flying-saucer look. Hiring Phil Emery and Ryan Pace as general managers in the 2010s sent the organization into a perpetual death spiral that took Ryan Poles four years to pull out of. Phillips was an accountant masquerading as a big-time executive, and it showed.
The Bears are finally nearing the finish line.
Talks have picked up between Warren and Illinois leaders in recent weeks. Governor J.B. Pritzker signed a new act that would make securing infrastructure funding much easier. The final hurdle is passing a megaprojects bill that should allow the Bears to negotiate a fair property tax rate. Once that is done, construction can finally begin on a new stadium. Barring an unexpected snag that causes things to fall apart, the team will stay in Illinois and build in Arlington Heights, as originally planned.
It is objectively hilarious that they went through all the peaks and valleys of the past three years only to wind up back where they started. Ted Phillips probably would’ve saved Warren and the McCaskeys so many headaches if he’d bothered to do any research on what he was about to undertake. It probably didn’t cross his mind. He knew he was stepping down soon. Just get the purchase done. Everything else would work out fine. The past 25 years make more and more sense by the day.