By Ian Nicholas Quillen
After waiting more than three decades to secure a permanent, downtown home, Chicago Fire FC are leaving no stone unturned to excite fans for the move.
The Fire on Thursday afternoon announced their immersive Dear Chicago Experience Center in the Windy City’s iconic Wrigely Building, a venue designed to provide fans a sensory preview of the matchday experience at the club’s soon-to-be constructed, 22,000-seat venue.
The project cost the club about $6 million – a figure driven up by selection of a prime parcel of downtown real estate – and includes 9,000 square feet of displays that will be open first to the club’s current premium ticket holders, then its current season ticket holders, and then to the general public.
“We needed to provide people an opportunity to fully understand what the new matchday experience will be like,” said Dave Baldwin, the Fire’s president of business operations. “For the last three decades, the Fire have been tenants, and we haven’t been able to own the experience. … And so part of this has been taking control of the narrative of what a matchday is going to be like.
Yes, it’s definitely a swanky sales pitch, aimed first and foremost at the kind of folks who may be future suite owners or club-level season ticket holders.
But it’s also a storytelling project attempting to connect with a fanbase that has endured plenty of hard times – relative both to other MLS clubs and to other more popular Chicago sports brands – and may have trouble envisioning just how much better things could get in the near future.
The Dear Chicago theme harkens back to the public letter club owner Joe Mansueto penned in June. In it, he announced the intention for a $750 million, privately financed project to be the centerpiece of a broader redevelopment of a 62-acre parcel of land colloquially known as The 78.
The experience center aims to manifest of the motivations Mansueto – a Chicago native and the founder of Morningstar, Inc. – cited in that letter.
“He’s paying for (the stadium) outright, which is unheard of in this day and time, and he’s doing it for a very pure and meaningful purpose” said Drew Bryant, the chief creative officer at Elevate, the firm hired by the Fire to lead the experience center design process.
"We were interviewing him, and he talked about starting his business out of his bedroom. He talked about how much the city helped him in his journey, and how he doesn’t feel like he would be the person he is or have had as much success as he’s had if there weren’t people in the city who were helping him along the way.
“And so this was his opportunity to give back. And it’s very meaningful, and it’s deep, and the intent behind it is to bring world-class soccer to a world-class city.”
Those who visit will find a video showroom offering a thearter-style preview of the stadium’s design, premium seating experiences and matchday environments, a replica stadium luxury suite built to scale, and two different different physical models: One depicts a fully developed version of The 78, including the stadium. The other is a larger scale model of the stadium itself.
There’s also a bar space capable of hosting 100 or so guests, one the club will retain use of for smaller events after the move to the new stadium is complete.
The Fire are hardly the first MLS team to try and build momentum before a move.
When the club opens its new home, it will become the 24th active team to christen a permanent venue where it is the primary tenant, after Inter Miami opens its 25,000-seat venue later this year and New York City FC opens Etihad Park in 2027. And this isn’t even the first soccer-specific stadium in the club’s history. To close somewhat nomadic first decade, the Fire moved into SeatGeek Stadium (then Toyota Park) in suburban Bridgeview, Ill., in 2006.
But few new facilities have represented such an enormous opportunity to reclaim local and national relevancy, something Mansueto has been pursuing throughout his ownership.
One of his first moves when purchasing the club in 2019 was to secure a return to Soldier Field – a far more accessible location for many of the club’s fans – despite far more expense from an operations standpoint.
Mansueto also explored a potential club rebrand, and even more to his credit, reversed course after fans made clear their attachment to the Chicago Fire’s early club history – particularly its 1998 MLS Cup, 2003 Supporters’ Shield, and four U.S. Open Cups.
His willingness to move ahead on the new stadium without public financing has undoubtedly helped speed the process. And the appetite to add to the cost of the experience center by placing it in an instantly recognizable Chicago location is a statement in its own right.
“The investment that this owner and president are making into the experience center alone, is on par with the NFL,” Bryant said. “It’s the same dollar amount, it’s the same size. … Every move that they’re making is to try to cement the brand within the city.”
If there is a skepticism, it may be rooted in a concern that the new facility with considerably expanded premium amenities could price out the diehards who have survived the club’s first 30 years.
The stadium itself will include 50 private suites, 500 loge seats and 3,500 club level seats, making up nearly a quarter of the total capacity. This season, the end of a seven-year playoff drought and considerable improvement under first-year manager Gregg Berhalter lifted the Fire’s average attendance north of 23,000, more than the new stadium is expected to hold.
Even so, Baldwin insists the Fire will remain accessible to the average fan in their new home, noting that being successful at selling premium ticket offerings may actually make doing so easier.
"We consistently have some of the least expensive tickets in MLS despite having one of the highest payrolls under Joe Mansueto," Baldwin said. “One of the nice things about having such a heavy premium concentration – about 23% of the stadium will be premium – is that allows us to offset pricing throughout the rest of the building.”
