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Another Blow For Lucas Museum? Bears Selling Parking Passes For South Lot

By Ted Cox | May 27, 2016 3:59pm | Updated on June 1, 2016 10:54am
 The Bears are going ahead with plans to sell season parking passes on the South Lot, still the authorized site of the Lucas Museum.
The Bears are going ahead with plans to sell season parking passes on the South Lot, still the authorized site of the Lucas Museum.
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Flickr/Paul Eisenberg

SOUTH LOOP — Lucas Museum proponents probably have a bad feeling about this.

The Bears have put out a call to season-ticket holders to apply for season parking passes on the Soldier Field South Lot, the originally selected site of the Lucas Museum, sending a clear message that the team and city officials don't expect construction to start this year — if ever.

Soldier Field Parking put out an email dated Thursday to Bears season-ticket holders stating: "You are eligible to participate in the 'Random Selection Process' that will be used to randomly select registrants that agree to purchase season parking passes at an assigned facility in the immediate vicinity of Soldier Field, including the Adler Lot, North Garage, South Lot and Waldron Deck."

The South Lot is the largest of those lots, with 1,500 parking spaces.

The email makes plain the passes are for all 10 games this season, including two exhibition games. The last home game scheduled is vs. the Vikings on Dec. 24, but if the team made the playoffs there could be games in January.

The Bears, who raised a stink last year when it appeared tailgaters might lose spots if the museum was built, denied any role in the lottery process, with team spokesman Jim Christman saying, "All parking is administered by Standard Parking which is a vendor of SMG, which operates Soldier Field for the Park District."

Standard Parking referred comment to the Park District, which did not respond to requests for a response.

Yet it seems unlikely the parking firm would have gone ahead without a green light from the Bears, the Park District, which owns Soldier Field, and City Hall. Park District and Soldier Field managers have said in the past that the Bears have a say in all decisions affecting Bears games, and they get all the revenue from the spaces although they pay $1 million to the Park District to lease the lots.

The South Lot was the original site selected for the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, and it remains the city's approved location for "Star Wars" movie mogul George Lucas' museum. Yet Friends of the Parks has thus far blocked construction with a lawsuit. And even though the lakefront protection group has suspended its suit more recently with the suggestion from Mayor Rahm Emanuel that the museum could be put in place of a demolished McCormick Place East Lakeside Center, the group has insisted it remains opposed to placing the museum anywhere east of Lake Shore Drive.

That produced a blistering response from Mellody Hobson, Chicago financier and wife of Lucas, even as he has since admitted looking elsewhere for placement of the museum.

Last year, the Bears and the Chicago Park District made construction contingency plans to accommodate the usual number of tailgaters when it appeared the museum was going to be located on the South Lot. They included reconfigured old lots as well as a new garage west of Lake Shore Drive. But those plans appear to be out the window this season.

Registration for the Bears' parking lottery begins at 11 a.m. Thursday on a Soldier Field website, and the deadline to apply is June 24. There's good news for Bear fans, however: prices for Soldier Field parking will remain at $49 a game, with an administrative service fee bringing the total cost of the 10-game package to $506.50.

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