Editorial: A fantasy Soldier Field video brightened a gray January weekend. Don’t be fooled.

January is the cruelest month in Chicago. That perhaps explains why the city went bananas this past weekend for a fantastical six-minute video put out by the so-called Reimagine Soldier Field Coalition, a group promoting the interests of Bob Dunn and Landmark Development. Dunn leads the effort to build One Central, the proposed megaproject located across DuSable Lake Shore Drive from Soldier Field.

This nifty bit of computer-generated animation from a company that worked on such projects as the US Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, the MetLife Stadium in New Jersey and the Greektown Entertainment District in Detroit got all kinds of media play.

The video features Bill Kurtis, the city’s most respected baritone booster, coaxing us to live up to our potential. “Chicago,” it begins, seductively, “the model of a world-class city.”

Whenever you hear the adjective “world-class” (or anyone quoting Daniel Burnham) in a proposal, watch your wallets and purses. And know that anyone using the phrase is about to argue that “world-class” (whatever that means) might just go away without whatever megaproject they are hyping.

“Chicago,” says Kurtis, “is on the verge of transforming one of our most storied civic assets into the very definition of the next generation of sports and entertainment venues.”

In fact, Chicago is on the verge of losing its NFL team to a suburb and has no plan in place for Soldier Field whatsoever, especially when it comes to funding. But back to the video version of reality.

We start at the One Central development, rendered to look like a transit hub of a size and scale exceeding the $1.6 billion Daniel Moynihan train hall in New York. If built, it would be a European-style hub filled with a fleet of Amtrak and Metra trains gliding into place like a Eurostar terminal on steroids.

The current reality? Social media is filled with reports of ghost trains and CTA information boards showing no trains whatsoever. Amtrak has been facing staff and equipment shortages and has been canceling departures on an Illinois network that remains a dismal shadow of what it should be, when it comes to choice of cities and frequency of departures.

The One Central video seems to assume that the historic Union Station, a crucial asset with unrealized potential, has magically ceased to exist, being as all energy now is flowing to One Central, as distinct from where rail lines actually terminate.

Also confined to the memory hole: the rapid transit station built under the now-struggling Block 37 development for a quicker journey to Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, currently undergoing a massive retooling without any clear new plans for fast, user-friendly public transportation to the airport.

In the One Central animation, Amtrak and Metra jostle for a free platform with the Chi-Line. That’s a moniker for the old Central Area Circulator Project, first suggested by the Metropolitan Planning Council. It would be an eight-mile, light-rail transit network linking the Ogilvie Transportation Center, Union Station and the Randolph Metra station with Streeterville, Navy Pier, the Museum Campus and the proposed One Central. That plan has been around since the 1990s; it was killed by Jim Edgar in 1995 when the former Illinois governor did not appropriate any funding.

As you leave your train of choice at One Central, you ascend giant escalators to “the most dynamic entertainment experience anywhere on the globe” (a modest claim), where a concert venue awaits.

Finally, we cross DuSable Lake Shore Drive. We swoop into Soldier Field, pausing only to interact with “leading corporate brands” before ascending into the historic colonnades, assuming we’re a member of the right “dynamic” club. In essence, the video suggests adding “fan amenities” partly at One Central but mainly up in the rafters of Soldier Field. A dome is added by building two columns in the open end zone and glassing in everything.

Look, Soldier Field hosting basketball! Year-round concerts! Soccer! There’s even a new outdoor theater for generic “arts groups” in the north parking lot. “Unlike other cities, we don’t walk away from an iconic asset,” says Kurtis, presumably shaming the Bears. “We build on our history.”

The Bears, we suspect, will be unmoved. The video does not address who will own this fabulous new project. The Bears likely would want it to be the Bears, which is pretty much what they are seeking to do in Arlington Heights. However, that can’t happen, since Soldier Field is owned by the Chicago Park District.

We’ve said many times that the future of Soldier Field is not tied to the Bears. We support the stadium’s post-Bears regeneration as a better venue for soccer, college football and summer concerts, assuming the money can be found, although we’d like to see as much access as possible to the spiffy lakefront view for regular folks, not members of private clubs.

We’re all for nice, new places to have a drink, listen to music and watch a show. But we think the city’s historic entertainment venues need attention first, and we believe private developers should build new venues according to market demand and on their own dime.

We’re also deeply concerned about Michigan Avenue, which can no longer survive purely as a retail district. Improvements to its north end, and better connectivity to the lake, are a higher economic priority than One Central, or even Soldier Field, which already seems to have attracted Taylor Swift, sans dome.

If One Central as a private development can help spur better transit and circulation of people from the West Loop to the Lakefront, long a huge problem in Chicago, we’re all for modest cooperation. But right now the CTA has its hands full not just with the Red Line extension but its core business of running safe, reliable trains. Meanwhile, Metra still has to figure out when people want to ride its trains and learn how to be something other than a commuter railroad. We’ve yet to read that plan.

And Amtrak? It’s taking years just to add a second daily train from Chicago to Minneapolis along an existing track, so the idea that the federally subsidized railroad would prioritize an expansion of regular service to One Central over, say, the entire trainless state of Ohio, is the stuff of a fantastical sizzle reel with an agenda.

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