Quote:
Originally Posted by nomarandlee
You mean south of McCormick Place? I never imagined they would try to squeeze it in that space. I always assumed that if built there, you build the stadium orienting east-west above grade over the tracks and the Marshalling yards. Underneath the football plaza around the stadium, you could also have a ton of underground parking.
The stadium would also essentially use the same 55 and LSD ramps that McCormick Place uses. The only major issue I see with that parcel is that an Advocate outpatient care center is there, but I think the Bears/city could help rebuild that nearby for 30-50 million dollars.
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So Metra Electric would run under the 50-yard line? Typically a stadium field is depressed below grade to reduce the size of the structure - in this scheme the field would end up about 30' above grade to clear the Metra tracks, making the stadium 4-5 stories taller than it needs to be and creating a bunch of empty space on the lower levels. East-west stadiums are also pretty rare because the sun's glare can be an issue.
More broadly, this kind of crayon exercise ignores the very real challenges of big urban development projects. The more stakeholders, the more likely you get a big delay, the more your costs go up. The Bears have shallow pockets, the politicians are (commendably) very resistant to use taxpayer money, and Chicago has sky-high construction costs. Given all that, the Bears really need to start from a nice "clean" patch of dirt, not something involving lakefront protection, transit agencies, parks groups, private landowners/eminent domain, etc.
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