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CHICAGO - Soldier Field (61,500)

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chicago
221K views 532 replies 169 participants last post by  nyrmetros 
#1 · (Edited by Moderator)

Chicago Bears

9x Champion:
1921, 1932, 1933, 1940, 1941,
1943, 1946, 1963, 1985



Home of the NFL's Chicago Bears

Can you fit a new modern stadium inside of an old one? One complete with hundred of luxury suites, club seating and put fans close to the action? Yes. There are bigger stadiums out there, with fancy awnings, retractable roofs, etc. They all try to be the most modern, yet most are big repeats of the same thing. Then you have Soldier Field, that shows there is innovation in design.

Pre-renovation Soldier Field



New Soldier Field






Atriums, concourses and walkways






Gameday football




Gameday football



 
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20
#142 ·
Fan cheer during the national anthem as a giant United States flag is held over Soldier Field on the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks before an NFL football game between the Chicago Bears and the Atlanta Falcons in Chicago, Sunday, Sept. 11, 2011. (AP Photo/Kiichiro Sato)







 
#145 · (Edited)
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-edit-field-0203-20120203,0,7305450.story

A Chicago Super Bowl! Oh ... wait ... sorry ...
Yet another example of how the Soldier Field fiasco cheated Chicagoans

February 3, 2012

The 10-day festival known as "sports' biggest party" thus far has been a rollicking success. Visitors bearing great wads of cash have boosted the local economy. Locals, too, have flocked into the downtown "Super Bowl Village" for 800-foot zip line rides — and for what looks like the world's greatest concentration of music events. Oh, and there'll also be an any-weather football game at a state-of-the-art stadium topped by a retractable roof.

Yes, we envy all the fun and profit now enjoyed by our neighbors in Indianapolis, which has a metro-area population of 1.75 million.

And we'd love to boast about the past and future Super Bowls right here in Chicago, which has a metro-area population of 9.46 million. You want a party? Chicago could throw a party.

If, that is, Chicago wasn't stuck with the shrimpiest stadium (capacity: 61,500) in the National Football League, a relentlessly open-air facility that, barring some NFL change of heart, is unfit for a February Super Bowl. Or an NCAA Final Four explosion of March Madness. Or huge indoor concerts between autumn and spring. Or, dare we raise a sore subject, weatherproof opening and closing ceremonies for some future Chicago Olympiad.

No, Chicago can't begin to compete with Indianapolis or other U.S. cities for these lavish and lucrative events. Why not? Because, a decade ago, Mayor Richard M. Daley and the private company that owns the Chicago Bears insisted on building the wrong stadium in the wrong place — with enormous help from taxpayers who were forbidden any chance to vote on their forced participation.

Now those taxpayers are stuck with a lakefront eyesore we've likened to a massive Ty-D-Bol clumsily jammed into a supposedly sacrosanct war monument to deceased American servicemen and women. When this retrofitted monstrosity opened in 2003, Tribune columnist Steve Chapman labeled it "the most jarring union of youth and age since Anna Nicole Smith married an 89-year-old billionaire."

What a lousy deal this Soldier Field fiasco was for Chicago. We wrote Dec. 9 about how the project's cost eventually swelled to about $660 million, the public debt burden to some $432 million. Backloaded principal and interest payments are leaping from $6.3 million in 2002 to $88.5 million in 2032. To make the financing work, revenues from a 2 percent hotel tax have to grow by 5.615 percent every year, for 30 years.

Are you surprised that revenues are falling short of that foolishly ambitious growth rate?

Are you surprised that, for the next two decades, Chicago taxpayers are stuck paying any and all shortfalls — something Daley flat-out guaranteed would not happen?

This was a colossal screw-up that didn't need to be. There was chatter about an indoor Chicago stadium even before Walter Payton first wore a Bears uniform in 1975. During the 1990s, politicians and civic leaders talked to death proposals for "McDome," a 75,000-seat, multi-use arena — sports, entertainment, exhibitions, conventions — to accompany a McCormick Place addition. Didn't happen.

In 2001, the Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois — eager to pre-empt the desecration of Soldier Field — pushed a clever and much less expensive plan for an 80,000-seat domed stadium on 23 acres of public land across 35th Street from what's now U.S. Cellular Field. A survey by Market Shares Corp. found that citizens favored that location by a 2-1 ratio — and favored a facility with a retractable roof by a 5-1 ratio.

Daley, though, was in Full Stubborn — think Chicago Children's Museum to Grant Park. And the company that owns the Bears had a fervent but unarticulated phobia of proposed locations on the South or West sides. As the 35th Street proposal began to gain traction in public discourse, mouthpieces for the Bears owners and City Hall assured us that thorough "studies" had ruled out that site. We repeatedly asked to see those "studies." We're still waiting.

So Daley and the Bears owners got their way, taxpayers got shafted and Chicago got eliminated from competition for Super Bowls. Of the 45 games played thus far, three have been in Snowbelt stadiums, all with roofs: Pontiac, Mich., in 1982, Minneapolis in 1992 and Detroit in 2006. The 2014 game will be played in a new New York-area outdoor stadium; nervous NFL officials have hinted that that's a one-time exception to their First Commandment: Thou shalt not risk a winter-ravaged Super Bowl.

So who knows? Maybe the NFL someday will decide it wants many more Super Bowls played in cold outdoor climes.

Maybe, that is, this city someday will qualify for the mega-event Indianapolis is happily hosting now.

Or maybe Chicago's best hope is that bond payments conclude as scheduled in 2032 — after which wrecking balls can demolish Soldier Field's grotesque and impractical Ty-D-Bol.
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2001 - Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois 80k seat stadium plan
 
#148 ·
i think its one of the best looking NFL stadiums..its got character..but yes,its too small,possibly in the wrong place and perhaps a roof would have been a good idea..i would just ask a question,all those years of the old S.F.was not having a roof and not hosting the Super Bowl ever an issue then?
 
#149 ·
Football was meant to be played outdoors. Yes it means Chicago won't get super bowls, as for only 61,500 seats, that is a little small and it does seem odd for that small.

I did like that there's armrests and cup holders instead of just regular bleachers like Lambeau Field.
 
#151 · (Edited)
#156 ·
Very unlikely to happen but........

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/...owl-at-soldier-field-20120531,0,4062206.story

Emanuel makes pitch for Super Bowl at Soldier Field

By John Byrne

Tribune reporter

May 31, 2012

Mayor Rahm Emanuel put the arm on NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell today, making a case for a Super Bowl to be held at Soldier Field.

Don’t start making plans to buy tickets yet, however. Chicago's lakefront is often arctic in February, and the stadium might not be big enough to host a Super Bowl.

Goodell was on hand to applaud the Bears and the Chicago Park District for making Soldier Field the first NFL stadium to receive LEED certification for its environmentally sustainable attributes.

But Emanuel said he had the Super Bowl on his mind when the two met privately before the news conference. "I found out a secret, and that is the commissioner's in-laws live in the area, and I'm holding them hostage until that happens," Emanuel said.........

Goodell also acknowledged Soldier Field's relatively small capacity could be an issue.

But with increased seating and changes in code allowing for more people in its suites, the stadium's capacity has grown since its 2001-2003 renovation from 61,500 to about 63,500.

The home of the Indianapolis Colts, Lucas Oil Stadium, has a usual capacity of about 63,000 for football games, which would make it the smallest capacity stadium behind Soldier Field, but that was increased to about 68,000 for this year’s Super Bowl, according to the NFL. Lucas Oil Stadium also has a retractable roof, however.

Also important, Goodell said, is the need to be able to host the many people who come into the city just to be a part of the event without attending the game..........
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#162 ·
I appreciate the boldness of the design and love how close the seats are to the field, but it feels like the architect didn't quite know how to 'resolve' the corners with the varying heights of the upper deck. It appears very sloppy and almost unfinished in the corners. Something with a more sleek finish would have really been the icing on the cake for me, which would have made it one of my favorite stadiums.
 
#163 ·
http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/football/bears/ct-spt-0616-mitchell--20120616,0,2107439.column

Did Chicago botch Super Bowl chances with McDome fiasco?
1 critic blames politicians for scuttling plans for large multi-use stadium


Fred Mitchell

June 15, 2012

........Marc Ganis, president of the Chicago-based consulting firm SportsCorp Ltd., tells me Chicago should have been host to multiple Super Bowls by now if the idea of a domed stadium hadn't been treated like a political football.

"Had Chicago and Illinois built the McDome (in 1996), the original domed stadium planned for next to McCormick Place, I suspect we would have had at least two Super Bowls already," Ganis said.

"It was extremely short-sighted; it was extremely narrow focus. … It would have cost (less than what it eventually) cost simply to upgrade Soldier Field. It would have been a terrific financial and tourism boost for the city."

The reported estimated cost was $500 million. The cost for renovating Soldier Field in 2002-03 was $680 million, according to Ganis, and the capacity was reduced to a league-low 61,500. A domed stadium also might have attracted NCAA Final Fours and other events of national significance.........

I asked Ganis, who has been involved in many projects, such as the new Yankee Stadium, about the feasibility of expanding Soldier Field to accommodate a Super Bowl.

"Very expensive, but with enough money, anything is do-able," he said. "The problem of increasing the capacity is that one of the strengths of Soldier Field is its intimacy. It's great for Bears fans who go to the games. But because of the compactness … the columns being where they are, the scoreboards in the two end zones, it leaves very little space for even temporary seating expansion.

"If New York goes very well, then I think the league will be open to looking at more (Northern) open-air Super Bowls. My guess is Washington (would be next) with a stadium that could be 100,000-plus seats, 300-plus suites..........
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