Bear Digest

Indiana Takes One More Step Toward Pulling Bears Across Border

The stadium at Arlington Heights might never come about if Indiana keeps working as quickly as it is, and on Wednesday the state Senate approved a stadium funding plan.
Gene Chamberlain|
Arlington Park sits waiting for the Bears' construction project but Gov. J.B. Pritzker has helped prevent it to date.
Arlington Park sits waiting for the Bears' construction project but Gov. J.B. Pritzker has helped prevent it to date. | Chicago Bears On SI Photo: Gene Chamberlain

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If Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Illinois lawmakers thought they had locked up the Bears merely by changing their tune by saying they'll pay for a new stadium's infrastructure and work on a tax freeze law, they'll be surprised to see their competition hasn't shriveled up and died.

The Indiana Senate on Wednesday passed the bill necessary to put in place the Northwest Indiana Stadium Authority. The bill still must be passed by the Indiana House and signed by Gov. Michael Braun.

It authorizes the issuance of bonds, grants authority to acquire land, finance the construction of a stadium and negotiate terms of a lease, with the Bears as their target. Basically, it is the infrastructure necessary to put the Bears in an Indiana stadium.

Specifically, it would authorize a 35-year lease wit a 40-year bond for the construction.

The Bears would have to pay for repairs and stadium operating costs.

The Bears have said they will pay $2 billion toward an indoor stadium on their property in Arlington Heights but need about $860 million in infrastructure for the project. Until the possibility of an Indiana stadium, Pritzker and the Springfield Democrats had balked at any talk of paying that much money for infrastructure. Pritzker also had said the Bears had to pay the money remaining on the bond used to finance construction of the current Soldier Field, which opened in 2003 and has the smallest seating capacity in the NFL.

The Bears had actually paid off their portion of the bond long ago but the city mismanaged its part of the bond repayment.

“The Bears don’t owe that," Pritzker admitted, reversing field while the team was on the verge of playing the Rams for a berth in the NFC Championship Game, according to Crain's Business. "That is a decision that government leaders made years ago to borrow that money to create the Bears stadium. The actual fiscal responsibility, the financial responsibility for that debt, does not fall on the Bears.”

Indiana is maintaining its pressure and ramped it up on Wednesday.

"Indiana is open for business and the Chicago Bears have taken notice," Braun posted Wednesday on "X." "The Senate's passage of SB 27 to establish a Northwest Indiana stadium authority is the next critical step in the right direction to bring the Chicago Bears to the Hoosier state and to grow Indiana's economy."

The Bears have been remaining mostly silent on all of this in recent weeks. Mayor Jim Tinaglia of Arlington Heights thinks they still want to build on their own property at the former Arlington International Racecourse.

Negotiations on tax rates with surrounding taxing bodies happened long ago, but the Bars are waiting on the state. The idea was to have shovels in the ground last year, and it couldn't happen because of political opposition in Springfield and the city of Chicago, which somehow failed to get the message long ago that Soldier Field is no longer in the picture.

“I know, I know in my heart of hearts that George (McCaskey) is very enthusiastic and excited about the idea of coming to Arlington Heights,” Tinaglia said in an interview on WSCR AM-670's Mully & Haugh last week.

Tinaglia continued to urge Pritzker and state officials to play catch-up against Indiana.

"I don't think I'd want to be the Governor of Illinois when and if the Bears were to decide to leave the state all together,” he told WSCR.

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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.