Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s bid to keep the Bears in Chicago by topping Soldier Field with a dome has the feel of desperation. It’s like the old hook-and-ladder play. Your team is 90 yards away from a touchdown with just a few seconds on the clock, and tries to lateral the ball from player to player, in hopes of a miracle moment.
Chicago finally got a glimpse of Lightfoot’s plan to overhaul Soldier Field and the Museum Campus that — for now, at least — serves as home to the NFL’s smallest capacity stadium. The mayor revealed options crafted both to reflect scenarios in which the Bears stay put, and where the Monsters of the Midway take the Jane Addams Expressway westward to a new home in Arlington Heights.
The carrot Lightfoot dangled in front of Halas Hall comes in the form of a domed Soldier Field that would expand seating capacity from 61,500 to 70,000. Time will tell whether it gets the Bears’ attention. City officials claim it would be $1 billion to $1.5 billion cheaper than building a stadium from scratch in the northwest suburbs, and it would for the first time give fans a climate-controlled, snowless experience in which to revel in the team’s triumphs — and of course, commiserate over their on-field implosions.
