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Bears Stadium Saga Now Appears to Be Pointing Straight Toward Indiana

The Bears' stadium push in Illinois is fading fast, and with Arlington Heights stalled, Indiana now looks like the clearest path forward for the franchise.
Gene Chamberlain|
The rendering of what the Arlington Heights Stadium should look like from inside, or one in Hammond.
The rendering of what the Arlington Heights Stadium should look like from inside, or one in Hammond. | Rendering courtesy of Manica

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Chicago Bears

To say there is no hope now for the Arlington Heights Bears stadium project is stretching the truth.

It's a very tiny stretch.

The legislature adjourned and could always be called back for a special summer session to vote on a Bears stadium. According to analysts, they wouldn't do it for something like this.

Special sessions have been called at numerous times in the past, though. However, most of the time it is a budgetary type of situation. It wasn't just four years ago when Gov. J.B. Pritzker called for a special summer session after the Supreme Court ruling against Roe vs. Wade that returned the abortion decision to the states.

One was also called in 2020 because of the pandemic.

It does happen, just not to prevent a private business from relocating.

Is a football stadium worth calling a special session? It probably wouldn't be, except in this case it involves a 105-year-old business leaving the state, a team in the most popular sport and league in the country.

Would Maryland have called a special session in 1984 if they knew the next night Robert Irsay was loading up the Mayflower trucks and moving his Colts franchise to Indianapolis?

Perhaps if the Bears knew they were calling a special session, then they could get on board. However, a major problem is the compromise solution they voted on in Springfield at an ungodly hour Monday morning.  

It was not the megaproject bill designed for payment in lieu of taxes like Arlington Heights wanted.

Paris Schutz of NBC Chicago reported on Monday that Senate president Don Harmon is citing the old billionaires argument regarding why the last plan died out. This definitely doesn't sound like a reason why they'd reconvene.

"It's a miracle we got anything done," Harmon told Schutz. "There was no appetite at all to provide public dollars to a $10 billion sports franchise. We love the Bears... but there was an undercurrent in our caucus not to do anything."

This came from the Senate president and the bill passed by a large amount in the Senate. It was the House where it bogged down.

Also Schutz and other political reporters are saying there is little desire by Arlington Heights to pursue the plan that was eventually voted on — the stadium authority plan.  The plan originally worked on had been the Bears owning the property and giving agreed-upon payment in lieu of taxes to local districts. The plan eventually approved by the Senate would have denied taxes for the area and made Arlington Heights owners with the Bears as tenants paying rent but no taxes. It’s understandable why the community would be opposed to this when they’d be getting no taxes.

The legislature really doesn't seem interested enough to pass it, let alone call a special session to pass it.

When there was adjournment, the Bears made it perfectly clear where this is now headed. The suggestion by many that they were bluffing on Indiana doesn't seem to hold much weight when they didn't even wait until morning. They issued a statement at 4:45 a.m.

“We will finalize our evaluation of both Arlington Heights and Hammond, and remain on the late spring/early summer timeline that we have previously communicated. We will provide an update when we have a decision to share,” their statement said.

Hammond Mayor Thomas McDermott Jr. was quick to seize on the situation and welcomed the Bears.

It's quite clear where it's all headed now, and the thought the Bears might be encouraged with a plan that passed the Senate and just wait until the fall session in November to take their chances doesn't seem likely.

They already would have been waiting until 2027 to get the project rolling, anyway, because the spring session had gone past the deadline of midnight and this meant the law wouldn’t take effect until next year.

Something drastic would need to occur now to prevent a move to Hammond.

Two possibilities: Chicago comes up with a viable alternative for a stadium near Soldier Field and convinces the Bears construction can begin early in 2027.  Or, the land at the so-called Hammond "slag heap" where the Bears were to build an Indiana stadium is declared unusable.

In the latter case, everything would be out the window.

Don't count on either happening. If the Bears already knew the Hammond land to be too toxic, they'd have been playing an extremely high-stakes poker game all along during this stadium debate. Their history says they simply do not have a stomach for such risks.

One of the sidelights to this entire process was Pritzker's antics. First he opposed it when politically expedient. Then he sided with the Bears. He made a speech today playing the billionaire card again and making it sound as if he's opposed.

The political chameleon lives to fight another day as he eyes a White House run, even as the Bears' chances of staying in Illinois die.

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Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.

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