The village of McCook’s mayor claims he has land for a stadium.
How does the name, the McCook Bears, sound? The latest municipality to throw its hat in the ring in trying to build a stadium for the National Football League’s Chicago Bears franchise is McCook, Illinois, a Chicago suburb that is about 15 miles southwest of the city. McCook Mayor Terrence Carr thinks he has a 130-acre site available that is owned by the Vulcan Materials Company. It is a quarry site and it could cost someone around $160 million to buy. Who is that someone? Maybe the Bears’ ownership, maybe the village of McCook. The Bears ownership or the village would buy the land. Then the Bears’ ownership would build a domed, 80,000-seat stadium and then the Bears’ ownership would give the venue to the village. The village of McCook would charge the team owners $1 a year in rent. That would make the facility exempt from property taxes. McCook according to the 2020 census had 249 people.
The McCook bid came after the Bears’ ownership decided to go ahead with a plan to build a stadium in Hammond, Indiana. But does Bears’ ownership really want to move to Hammond? It is very hard to answer. There is an Indiana financial plan in place for the Bears ownership. There is no financial plan in Illinois at the moment but in the stadium game, it ain’t over till it’s over and there still could be an Illinois financial plan presented to the Bears’ ownership. Illinois State Representative Curtis Tarver thinks Bears’ ownership and the city of Chicago should look at a site by Chicago’s south shore. There is no south shore plan, but there may be some land available that could house a stadium. Bears’ ownership still owns the land in Arlington Heights, Illinois but won’t move ahead on a stadium project because the property tax bill is too high. The Bears’ stadium saga continues.
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