Palatine mayor: Bears deal must be cost neutral to gain village support

Palatine supports the Bears moving to Arlington Heights, but only if it is cost-neutral for the village, Mayor Jim Schwantz said Wednesday.

“We are supportive of this if it is done right,” the mayor said during the Palatine Area Chamber of Commerce state of the village address.

Schwantz, who played for the Bears in 1992 and 1998, called the infrastructure needed for it to work in Arlington Heights mind boggling.

“Suburban infrastructure is not meant to handle 100,000,” he said.

Irrespective of the highways and trains that could carry fans to the stadium, local streets like Rohlwing Road, Northwest Highway and Algonquin Road are not built to handle the traffic on game day.

“There’s over a million people that would have to come through a keyhole, which is Palatine, on game day,” he said. “So what's going to happen when there's a traffic jam on Route 14? They're going to duck and dodge through the local streets.”

When asked whether the stadium would be a revenue generator for Palatine, Schwantz recalled a conversation he had with former Bears President and CEO Ted Phillips at the time the Bears started looking at Arlington Heights.

Phillips promised Palatine’s bars and restaurants would be filled on game day if the Bears came to Arlington Heights.

“I said, ‘Ted, when the Bears are in Seattle, our downtown establishments are filled,’” he said.

“Our biggest hope is that it doesn’t turn us upside down,” Village Manager Reid Ottesen said. He gave the example of having to widen Illinois Avenue to deal with game-day traffic.

Schwantz noted that Northwest Highway backs up to residential property.

Ottesen also pointed out that some businesses along Northwest Highway have expressed concern their properties are going to be condemned because IDOT will need to widen the road.

Schwantz said he still feels it is between downtown Chicago and Arlington Heights.

“I think it's more renewed now than it was maybe six months ago,” he said.

He said the hurdles are huge at both locations. At Arlington Park, he noted, the property is served by well water and has Salt Creek running through it.

“It’s a challenging location as well,” he said.