When Renovations Ruin A Stadium - Soldier Field

Soldier Field is the historic home of the Chicago Bears of the NFL. The stadium was designed in 1919 and opened on October 9, 1924 as Municipal Grant Park Stadium. The name was changed a year later to Solider Field as a memorial to U.S. soldiers who have died in the line of duty.
Upon its design and construction, Soldier Field was one of the most massive and modern stadiums in the world. It could hold a massive 74,280 fans and was expandable to well over 100,000 with additional temporary seating. The original cost of solider field was $13 million dollars. When you factor in inflation, that cost is around $174 million dollars today. For comparison LA’s Memorial Coliseum which was built around the same time cost only $1 million dollars.
Amazingly it wasn’t until 1971 when the Chicago Bears moved into the stadium on a three year commitment. They had spent the first 30 years of their existence playing at Wrigley Field, but as a result of the AFL-NFL merger Wrigley was deemed too small by new NFL standards. The relatively short three year contract was signed as the Bears planned to build a new stadium in the Arlington Heights suburb north of Chicago. The Bears renewed the contract for short stints before finally signing a 20 year lease beginning in 1978 after the Chicago Park District agreed to renovations to the then aging Soldier Field. AstroTurf was even installed at the stadium before being removed and replaced with natural grass in 1988. Some of these renovations include a new pressbox, 116 skyboxes, as well as the wooden bench seating was replaced with individual seats with backs and armrests. By the 1990s further renovations were needed, which included building new seating into the open end of the U shaped stadium, and moving the field closer to the stands to give fans a more intimate experience. The 50 yard line seats were the closest to the field of any stadium in the NFL until MetLife Stadium opened in 2010.
The truly extreme controversy of Soldier Field began in 2001 when the Chicago Park District announced plans to what basically amounted to building a new stadium inside the shell of the old stadium. The interior would be completely gutted, but the exterior would be preserved as much as possible.
The plans drew immediate criticism from local media and fans as disliked the new stadium proposals smaller seating capacity and the decision to continue on with a natural grass field. Demolition on what we’ll call the original Solder field began on January 19, 2002. No more than 36 hours after the Bears loss to the Eagles in the playoffs, 24,000 seats had been removed from Soldier Field. Locals and former players rushed to save seats from the stadium which were left out in the South Parking lot of the stadium. The new stadium renovations were described as a fiasco by notable Chicago architect Stanley Tigerman. Others noted the new stadium looked like a “spaceship landed on the stadium”. Thanks fully to the renovations, the stadium lost its status as a National Historic Landmark. The title was officially stripped of its historic title on February 17, 2006.
The stadium has remained relatively untouched from its renovation rebuild, aside from achieving LEED status for being an extremely energy efficient building in 2012.
Despite the $632 million dollar renovation less than 20 years ago, the end of Soldier Field may be near. On June 17. 2021 the Chicago Bears submitted a bid for the land that currently houses the Arlington Park Racetrack. If the bid is approved, it looks more than likely that the Bears would move from their home for the past 50 years, Soldier Field. This is truly a disaster for stadium officials, but would mark a growing trend of NFL teams moving to city suburbs for more land and appealing local tax incentives. It should also be pointed out that Arlington Heights is the same area that the Bears considered moving to in the mid 1970s. Perhaps this is just a move nearly 50 years in the making.
Soldier Field is a cautionary tale of how to do a stadium renovation wrong. The original stadium although not the greatest facility, had a certain historic draw due to strong traditions along the lines of Lambeau Field in Green Bay. The renovation removed any trace of these long lost traditions, and the stadium is now a modern shell of its former self.