The Chicago Bears and a trio of college districts whose financial belongings stand to be impacted by the soccer workforce’s proposed redevelopment of Arlington Worldwide Racecourse in Arlington Heights are deadlocked over how so much the Bears must pay in property taxes for the placement.
Crew President and CEO Kevin Warren talked about in a Could 4 letter to some faculty district superintendents that their proposal of a $95 million valuation for the property is a “non-starter” and “not viable.” The valuation would consequence inside the Bears paying $7.9 million in yearly property taxes.
“That is an extreme sum for property that may sit idle and can have no industrial use for at the very least the following two years,” Warren wrote.
The Bears countered by proposing annual tax funds of $4.3 million, and known as for returning to the negotiating desk.
Warren’s Could 4 letter, obtained by Pioneer Press, addressed collectively to the superintendents of Palatine Neighborhood Consolidated Faculty District 15, Arlington Heights-based Township Excessive Faculty District 214 and Palatine-based Township Excessive Faculty District 211, marks the latest skirmish in a monthslong forwards and backwards about property taxes the Bears would pay to native public schools as they search to develop the 326-acre former horseracing venue.
The superintendents have talked about the school districts would probably see an increase in scholar inhabitants must the soccer workforce switch forward with the proposed sprawling, roughly $5 billion mixed-use industrial and residential development. However, faculty leaders talked about, district belongings would possibly take successful if the workforce prevails in its request for a lowered property tax bill or frozen taxes by means of establishment of a tax increment financing district.
The superintendents collectively wrote a reply letter to Warren dated Could 12 stating that they see their urged $95 million valuation for the earlier racetrack as an excellent pitch.
“We don’t see the necessity to make a counteroffer right now,” their letter reads.
The Bears first agreed to purchase the property known as Arlington Park for $197 million in fall 2021 and closed on the property in February 2023.
The faculty districts that pull property tax revenue from the placement have been following developments intently since a minimal of Could 2022, when SD15 Superintendent Laurie Heinz wrote to Arlington Heights village leaders and impressed them to not arrange a TIF district to help the Bears’ pitch.
Leaders from each of the school districts have talked about they help the Bears’ switch from Soldier Subject on the lakefront inside the metropolis to northwest suburban Arlington Heights nevertheless have been leery of the proposed development’s have an effect on on their districts respective property tax revenues.
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The Bears had beforehand requested Prepare dinner County Assessor Fritz Kaegi to well worth the property at $37 million. For tax 12 months 2022, the assessor’s office valued the property at $197 million.
Kaegi’s reassessment of the land value would elevate the workforce’s property tax bill to $16 million, up from $2.8 million when the property was in use as a racetrack.
That analysis is being appealed. A listening to is scheduled June 2 sooner than the county Board of Overview.
Within the meantime, the school districts advocate the land valuation be $95 million, in accordance with the correspondences.
“It’s our agency perception that this provide offers the readability and equity CBFC Improvement wants, whereas sustaining the integrity of the property tax system on which college districts rely and defending different taxpayers inside our communities who don’t obtain such giant reductions of their assessments,” the superintendents’ letter reads.
Moreover, District 214 spokeswoman Stephanie Kim talked about $95 million represents a attainable “affordable compromise” between the assessor’s estimate and the Bears’ ask.
The workforce simply recently filed paperwork with the village to demolish the historic grandstand on the racetrack
Warren argued in his letter that the earliest the placement would have industrial use could be 2026. He known as on the districts to reach an settlement with the workforce on the value of the land.
“There is no such thing as a property within the surrounding Northwest Suburban Space that pays property taxes anyplace near this,” he wrote. “The time is now to shut the deal on this rapid short-term tax concern in a means that’s mutually useful and allows all events to focus collectively on the longer term and provides this mission the perfect likelihood of shifting ahead.”
The workforce “has a honest curiosity in being a valued member of the group and paying our justifiable share of taxes through the planning interval and, if we’re in a position to redevelop the Arlington Park Property, in the long run,” Warren wrote.
Faculty district leaders have talked about they proceed to help development on the web site and plan to fulfill with the workforce over the summer time season.
“The Faculty Districts totally help the redevelopment of the Arlington Park website, however is not going to help a taxpayer subsidy for the Bears that’s in any means detrimental to native colleges,” they talked about collectively in assertion to Pioneer Press.
Along with direct faculty district-team negotiations, the three districts labored collectively to hire a lobbying workforce to aim to kind the tip results of proposed legal guidelines circulating in Springfield that will create a 40-year public financing development for the redevelopment enterprise and a value in lieu of taxes, or PILOT, to the school districts to make up some anticipated misplaced revenue.
With merely days to go in state legislators’ spring session, neither Senate Invoice 1350, its companion bill inside the Home nor a third proposal from state Rep. Marty Moylan, D-Des Plaines, has superior inside the Legislature.
Additionally, Moylan simply recently filed Home Invoice 610, which is similar to an earlier mannequin he filed in April.And former village trustee and now freshman state Rep. Mary Beth Canty, an Arlington Heights Democrat, has signed on as a co-sponsor of the latest mannequin of Moylan’s bill.
Canty known as the measure “a step ahead, however on no account ultimate” and talked about her co-sponsorship represents “help for continued discussions with all stakeholders engaged.”
Arlington Heights Village Supervisor Randy Recklaus talked about Canty’s sponsorship did “not essentially” replicate village help for the measure and talked about the village was nonetheless reviewing the model new proposal.
“We might be persevering with to talk with Consultant Moylan, Consultant Canty and different contributors,” Recklaus talked about.
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