The Bears’ newest Halas Hall expansion is an apt illustration of just how far the franchise has come under McCaskey ownership — one of the last NFL teams to join the 20th century in terms of facilities is now leading the way in the 21st.
An impressive 162,500-square-foot expansion of football operations facilities is in some cases beyond state-of-the-art. The Bears have increased the size of their locker room, weight room, draft room, cafeteria and sports medicine facilities. They’ve added added amenities like a barber shop, a sauna and steam room. And they’ve also included the latest technological advancements in virtually every area — from the draft room to sports medicine to a new mini-indoor practice facility.
The Bears gave the media a tour of the expansion Thursday morning and it looks like they thought of everything — more lounge areas; more conference rooms; two enclosed patios, a learning center for staff training. The Bears even installed a 4,200-square-foot rooftop garden area, where they will grow their own herbs.
Safety Eddie Jackson gave it the ultimate compliment: “I feel like they’re giving Alabama a run for their money.”
Coach Matt Nagy was even more effusive: “Every day you pull in here, you’re just so thankful — you know that you have the top of the line in everything,” Nagy said. “No matter where it is — the hydrotherapy pools for the players, the training room, the weight room, the coaches’ offices, the players’ offices, the cafeteria — it’s just first class.”
Among the highlights:
- The players’ entrance down a corridor with the names and uniform numbers of the 14 retired jerseys on each wall.
- A 3,250-foot players lounge.
- An expanded cafeteria (more than double the previous size) that includes a hot-food station where everything but the bread is made on site, plus a coffee bar, smoothie/juice bar, soup-and-salad bar and dessert bar among other amenities.
- The new locker room is 1,750 square feet larger and can comfortably accommodate all 90 players on the preseason roster.
- The weight room was increased in size by 2,000 square feet.
- The sports medicine space is four times larger than the previous facility and includes two hydrotherapy pools, a float pod, a sauna and a steam room.
It’s a huge step for the Bears, who were housed in the archaic original Halas Hall on Washington Road in Lake Forest from 1979 until 1997. They renovated the new Halas Hall — located four miles west of the old facility in Lake Forest — in 2012, but took it to another level with this expansion.
The Bears did everything first-class here, but along with the luxury, they added advancements and amenities that Nagy believes creates an environment that has a direct impact on winning.
“It’s not fluff,” Nagy said. “This is all stuff that helps make our coaches better. It helps make our players better, because it’s new. There’s a lot of reasons behind what we’re doing. More than anything, I think all of us want to appreciate coming to work. And if you don’t — or if your environment is just a little bit off, it can sometimes damper where you’re at no matter what you’re doing. When you walk through here, if you’re in a bad mood, you’re not really that human.”
And in this day and age, facilities are everything — a virtual statement of who you are and how much you want to win.
“I think what we’re starting to realize now is in free agency,” Nagy told reporters Tuesday, “you end up having some guys that are comparing our facility to what they just came from or what they’re looking at currently and it helps put them over the top. Y’all will see that [at the tour of the expansion]. You’ll be blown away. I’ve talked to some people that have been in a lot of different facilities in the NFL and they’re talking about this being the best one.”
Jackson, a third-year player who made the All-Pro team last year, confirmed the motivating impact first-rate facilities like the Bears have on players.
“It just makes you want to come in here,” Jackson said. “It lifts you up when you walk into a place like this and see all the things they invest into us as players for us to perform well. I feel like we owe that in return to them — to come out here and practice hard and [on] game days, go hard.”
