Touchdown Arlington Coalition Wants To Connect Residents With Bears

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, IL ­— Holly Connors has been in real estate long enough to know that to get a deal done, communication must be at the center of the transaction.

So as an Arlington Heights resident who, like others, has felt at times like information about a potential Chicago Bears move to Arlington Heights hasn’t always reached those who live and work in Arlington Heights as effectively as it could, Connors decided to take matters into her own hands.

Connors, the founding agent and senior real estate agent of @properties Christies International Real Estate and owner of GetBurbed, a real estate team in Arlington Heights, called Halas Hall looking for answers. Connors said the call, which she said on Monday got “pretty high up the chain” began as a fact-finding mission. But the phone call also helped to launch a coalition of Arlington Heights business owners and community leaders who partnered together to advocate for the Bears making Arlington Heights their permanent home.

The group, Touchdown Arlington, now hopes to set up community meetings with Bears officials in hopes of working collaboratively with the franchise. Organizers with the group said last week they want to make a potential Bears move to the former Arlington Park Racecourse property a win-win for both the team and residents and business owners.

The group also hopes to bridge the communication gap between the community and the Bears, which Connors said was part of the reason she called the team's headquarters in Lake Forest in the first place.

“I think the hardest thing for people to understand is that someone with a title still puts their pants on one leg at a time,” Connors told Patch on Monday. “Just because they have a title doesn’t mean they’re not human. And there’s a human element involved in this transaction that certainly needs to be addressed.

“I believe the Bears understand that and they actively want to participate in that.”

Since announcing their intention to possibly re-develop the 326-acre former Arlington Park property, the Bears have held town meetings with local residents about a project that Chairman George McCaskey said could take up to 10 years to fully develop. In addition to a state-of-the-art enclosed stadium that would centerpiece the property, the Bears are proposing a mixed-use development that would offer hotels, restaurants, residential properties and other elements that would make the area a destination that would also host big events.

The Bears have vowed not to use public funds to build the stadium itself but have said that they will “need help” in funding the remainder of the multi-billion-dollar project.

Now, Connors, along with five other members of the Touchdown Arlington steering committee, are trying to get local residents and business owners a seat at the table as conversations between the city and team continue.

Team officials have said that they are still researching whether they will actually develop the property and if that project would include a new football home for the Bears. The team has said the project would lead to job creation and revenue for both the city and the region as well as potential tax revenues for local schools and other city entities.

But as the Bears explore the possibilities of what could be, Connors said that Touchdown Arlington is hoping to bring those conversations to those who matter most. She said that residents and business owners alike deserve to get answers “straight from the horse’s mouth”.

Members of the Touchdown Arlington steering committee have met privately with Bears officials and now want to expand those conversations to involve more community stakeholders, Connors said. Although the communications between the organization and the team have been limited, Connors told Patch she feels like the Bears want to do right by the community.

“I believe firmly that the Bears are a community organization and they really wanted to include the community but didn’t really know how or who to include and so I took it upon myself to make the phone call and find a place for myself,” Connors said.

Connors said that in the next 30 days, she said that she hopes the coalition will have a public meeting with the Bears set up to get the ball rolling on more public conversations. Other members of the group said that in order for a Bears’ move to Arlington Heights to truly be successful, residents need to be involved.

If they are, local attorney Ernest Rose, managing partner of Drost, Kivlahan, McMahon and O’Connor, said that the move can deliver “the biggest economic development win in the history of the state and the Midwest region.”

The Bears are committed, the group said, to working with community members and village officials after closing on the $197.3 million property agreement for the Arlington Park property earlier this year.

In a statement issued on Friday, the team said it welcomes and appreciates the support of local residents and business owners who “share our vision” of building a new stadium and entertainment district while also bringing millions in revenue to Arlington Heights and the surrounding region in the coming years.

“We are committed to continuing the exploration of this opportunity and engaging with the many stakeholders who have an important voice in this process,” the team's statement said.

Connors said she hopes to showcase some of the best of what Arlington Heights has to offer in upcoming public meetings with the Bears as a way of shining a light on what the village can offer if the Bears are to move there after years on Chicago’s Lakefront.

She said that the feedback to the formation of the grassroots group has been overwhelmingly as the organization seeks to open up better communications with the team. She said she senses overall community support for a Bears move, but like others who are involved in discussions about a possible move, all of the pieces of the puzzle need to fit together to make it right for the largest amount of people as possible.

Bears officials, including new team President Kevin Warren, said it is too early to establish a timeline of when a stadium project could begin. But in her limited conversations with the Bears, she feels like the team wants to make sure residents are on board with the project as much as possible.

“The community really wants the Bears here, but they want it on their terms in some ways and they want some input on how things are done,” Connors told Patch on Monday.

“I get the sense that (the Bears) is a community organization that seems on paper like a behemoth community. But it’s not. It’s really a bunch of people who want to do right by the community and the people who want to enjoy the Chicago Bears.”