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Bears urged to consider Michael Reese hospital site for domed stadium to avoid lakefront legal battle

Related Topics: Kam Buckner

Rich Hein/Sun-Times

The former Michael Reese Hospital site, just wast of Lake Shore Drive and south of McCormick Place, has been suggested as an alternative for a new domed stadium for the Chicago Bears.

Friends of the Parks urged the Bears on Monday to consider building a domed stadium on the old Michael Reese Hospital site to avoid a legal battle akin to the fight that stopped filmmaker George Lucas from building a movie museum on the same site.

One day after the Bears offered to spend $2 billion in private money to help build a publicly-owned domed stadium south of Soldier Field, Friends of the Parks board member Fred Bates was not appeased by the team’s sketchy promise to create nearly 20% more open space, presumably by carefully demolishing Soldier Field while preserving its war memorial and historic colonnades.