Bears Submit Bid To Buy Arlington International Racecourse

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, IL — Well, Arlington Heights, are you ready for some football? Ted Phillips, president and CEO of the Chicago Bears, said Thursday the team is interested in buying Arlington International Racecourse.

"We recently submitted a bid to purchase the Arlington International Racecourse property," Phillips said on Twitter. "It's our obligation to explore every possible option to ensure we're doing what's best for our organization and its future. If selected, this step allows us to further evaluate the property and its potential."

Soldier Field, located near Chicago's South Side, opened in 1924 and is the NFL's oldest stadium. The Bears began playing there in 1971 after leaving Wrigley Field. It has a football capacity of 61,500 fans.

Arlington, the flagship racetrack for horse racing in Illinois, was put up for sale in February. A deadline to submit proposals to Churchill Downs Inc., the Kentucky-based group that currently owns the 326-acre property, passed Tuesday.

"We welcome the Chicago Bears interest in the Arlington Park site. It is a one-of-a-kind location and we are glad that the Bears ownership sees its tremendous potential," Arlington Heights Mayor Tom Hayes said in a news release. "The Village will be working with the listing broker to closely review proposals by all potential users in the coming months.

Village officials, who said they found about the bid earlier Thursday, intend to work with the property owner, broker, and all potential purchasers over the next several months to determine "which uses would be best for the Arlington Heights community."

The announcement by the Bears marks the second bid made public since Tuesday's deadline. Roy Arnold, a former president of Arlington Park, is fronting a consortium hoping to buy the racetrack and continue to run horses there. Arnold is the CEO and president of Endeavor Properties LLC, a hospitality real estate group based in Wichita, Kansas. For the Arlington bid, Endeavor would partner with Sterling Bay, a developer of office properties in downtown Chicago. The consortium also includes Ocean Atlantic and GSP Development, as well as "high net worth individuals," reports Bloodhorse.

Arnold was president and CEO of Arlington Park from 2006-2010.

Rumors of the Bears moving to the Arlington Heights property have heated up in recent days. A move to the suburbs for the professional football team has been discussed for decades, but Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot said the team has a lease with Soldier Field through 2033 and the NFL "doesn't let teams break their leases."

In a statement posted to Twitter Thursday afternoon, Lightfoot reiterated that the Bears are locked into their lease for the next decade, called the team's bid for Arlington International Racecourse a "negotiating tactic," and threw shade at the team's long-running rivalry with Green Bay.

Read the mayor's full statement:

"Our city is home to some of the world's finest sports teams who have played a vital role in the city's re-opening. As part of the city's recovery, many organizations are doubling down on their commitment to Chicago, and we expect the Chicago Bears to follow suit. The Bears are locked into a lease at Soldier Field until 2033. In addition, this announcement from the Bears comes in the midst of negotiations for improvements at Soldier Field. This is clearly a negotiating tactic that the Bears have used before. As a season ticket holder and longtime Bears fan, I am committed to keeping the 'Chicago' name in our football team. And like most Bears fans, we want the organization to focus on putting a winning team on the field, beating the Packers finally and being relevant past October. Everything else is noise."

Hayes told Patch recently that he thought the Bears "would be among a number of great fits for the Arlington Park property if interested."

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