Quote:
Originally Posted by left of center
The stadium isn't going anywhere. Soldier Field is historic (despite the UFO bowl they put into it in the early 2000s) and the entire city would be pretty upset at anyone proposing it get torn down. Besides, the Bears only played 8 games a year at Soldier. The stadium has many, many other events all year long, from concerts to hosting the MLS Chicago Fire.
The only thing to replace the stadium would be parkland anyway, since private development along the lakefront (east of Lake Shore Drive) is prohibited by the Lakefront Protection Ordinance. You would have an almost impossible legal hill to climb trying to get anything else built there. Just ask George Lucas.  |
I recall that it was delisted as historic because of the renovation. Per Wiki, "On September 23, 2004, as a result of the renovation, a 10-member federal advisory committee unanimously recommended that Soldier Field be delisted as a National Historic Landmark.[37][38] The recommendation to delist was prepared by Carol Ahlgren, an architectural historian at the National Park Service's Midwest Regional Office in Omaha, Nebraska, who was quoted in Preservation Online stating, "if we had let this stand, I believe it would have lowered the standard of National Historic Landmarks throughout the country [...] If we want to keep the integrity of the program, let alone the landmarks, we really had no other recourse." The stadium lost the landmark designation on February 17, 2006..."
Not that it will make much difference given the legal issue you commented on.