SOUTH LOOP — Bears fans, you could be paying more to tailgate next year — and possibly most years after that.
But you could also be tailgating at Grant Park in the near future.
The Bears had their tailgating pot sweetened by 200 extra spots as part of an 11th-hour compromise on the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, but they might end up taking in even more honey as they've been cleared to set parking fees for all their game-day lots.
Few details were released when the Lucas Museum was granted final approval by the City Council last week, but according to an agreement signed between the Bears and the Park District the day before, the Bears now have complete control of parking prices on game day.
The compromise agreement includes the statement that the Park District "acknowledges that rental rate and fees for parking spaces in the parking allotment shall be determined by the club."
Bears spokesman Jim Christman said Tuesday the parking fees were previously set by the Park District. The Bears collect the fees for the 4,450 overall spots they're allotted for game days, and they pay the Park District just more than $1 million a year for the privilege.
Christman said that parking rates hadn't been set yet for 2016. But vouchers for the spots, which cost between about $50 and $106 per game, are in such high demand they often sell for several times that amount on the secondary market.
In the past, because the Park District set fees, attempts to raise the prices were controversial. In 2007, an angry Mayor Richard Daley overruled plans to raise prices by 50 percent for a playoff game. Under the new deal, however, the city won't be able to stop the Bears from raising prices as the club sees fit, just as the team is free to raise ticket prices whenever it wants — and which it has done on a nearly annual basis.
The new authority given the Bears was tucked away in a 41-page amendment to an operating agreement that guaranteed 1,700 tailgating spots to replace the 1,500 being lost when the museum is built on what is now the South Lot between Soldier Field and McCormick Place.
Tailgating at Grant Park
The Bears will also get 232 tailgating spots at the Hutchinson Field tennis courts in Grant Park, while losing 32 on Northerly Island.
The Bears are going from 3,161 tailgating spots to 3,361, with the math working out like so: They currently have 124 on the East Museum Lot next to the Field Museum, 824 on the Waldron Deck, 584 at the Adler Planetarium and 129 on Northerly Island, in addition to the South Lot.
When the Lucas Museum is completed, the Bears will replace the South Lot with 80 additional tailgating spots at the Adler lot through "improved organization," 560 on a so-called event prairie grass lot next to the museum, 386 atop an 18th Street garage to be built on the other side of Lake Shore Drive and 442 at a Burnham Harbor lot and other locations on Northerly Island.
That final number was down from 474 Northerly Island spots in the original even swap, but will be made up by 232 spots at the Hutchinson Field tennis courts, thus giving the Bears a 200-spot net gain.
"At the end of the project there will be 200 additional spots than currently exist," Christman acknowledged.
During construction, tailgaters will also gain spots overall through use of remote lots at 31st Street and the old Michael Reese Hospital site, as well as Hutchinson Field.
The Bears also got some concessions on marketing opportunities inside and outside Soldier Field as part of the compromise agreement.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel lauded the Bears as "tough negotiators" when the museum passed the City Council, saying they "did a good job negotiating for the fans" and what he called the "tailgating community."
For more neighborhood news, listen to DNAinfo Radio here:
