Arlington Heights Church Sells Amid Bears’ Stadium Pivot

The Chicago Bears’ recent unveiling of a $3.2 billion stadium on the city’s lakefront may have handed a loss to some property owners in Arlington Heights, where the team had been planning a game-day venue before a tax dispute threw a wrench into things.

The Congregational United Church of Christ has sold its Arlington Heights campus at 1001 Kirchoff Road to Northwest Community Hospital for an undisclosed amount, the Chicago Business Journal reported.

The church sold the 2.7-acre site “for financial reasons as the property was older and would’ve needed significant investment to meet long-term needs of the congregation,” Entre Commercial Realty’s Daniel Benassi, one of the brokers who represented the seller, told the outlet.

The site is less than two miles from the former Arlington International Racecourse, which the Bears purchased last year with plans for a potential stadium-anchored mixed-use development. It’s possible that the Church was holding onto the land with hopes that the Bears would ultimately settle on the northwest suburb, boosting its value and turning it into prime real estate, ripe for redevelopment.

While the Bears’ decision to remain inside the Chicago city limits appears to be firming up, some Arlington Heights developers are on standby until the team finalizes its plan.

“Once the Bears’ decision is final, we anticipate that development will commence either in anticipation of a new Bears’ stadium or to otherwise redevelop properties to their highest and best use without the stadium,” Benassi said.

The Bears’ Arlington Heights plan went sideways when Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi reset the former racetrack’s land value from $33.5 million to $192 million. The team bought the site for $197 million.

After the Bears’ appealed the assessment, the Cook County Board of Review lowered its valuation to $138 million. But that was still far more than the Bears’ $60 million valuation of the property.

—Quinn Donoghue