SPRINGFIELD — A key Illinois lawmaker spearheading negotiations on legislation to keep the Chicago Bears playing their home games in Illinois said Wednesday night he’s facing fresh opposition from some legislative colleagues who believe the team has expressed newfound openness to building a new Bears stadium in Chicago.
Democratic state Sen. Bill Cunningham of Chicago said in an interview that he and some legislative colleagues learned a few weeks ago that the Bears had expressed a willingness to revisit a lakefront stadium with Mayor Brandon Johnson’s office, before the mayor’s team told Chicago-based lawmakers about that conversation.
The Bears on Wednesday night pushed back on the idea, saying in a prepared statement that the team has reiterated since September that the only site in Cook County the team has been considering for its new home is in Arlington Heights, while the team is also considering a stadium proposal pitched by leaders in Indiana for a site in Hammond.
“The team has been clear with the city of Chicago and state leaders there are only two viable stadium locations under consideration, Arlington Heights and Hammond, and a decision is expected between the two later this spring or early summer,” the team said in the statement.
A representative from Johnson’s office did not return requests for comment.
Still, Cunningham said talk of resurrecting a Chicago stadium has created a roadblock in ongoing discussions among lawmakers trying to meet a May 31 deadline to hammer out a deal before the end of the spring legislative session that could compel the Bears to move to Arlington Heights. Cunningham said the Chicago stadium idea has become a catalyst for lawmakers — many from Chicago — who have expressed “substantial opposition” to the current negotiations over helping the team move to a suburb.
This sticking point in negotiations comes a few weeks after Johnson and others in the city administration visited Springfield and discussed with lawmakers the mayor’s desire to keep the Bears in Chicago.
“But by virtue of the fact that the Bears did outreach to the city as (of) late April, that has given credence to the mayor’s claim that a lakefront site is still viable,” Cunningham said. “That has helped him to convince Chicago legislators to move slowly, to give the city a chance to better develop a new lakefront plan and to not support the Arlington Heights site.”
Before the Bears released their statement Wednesday night, Cunningham predicted the team “will still say this is a binary choice. And they will say that there is no Chicago plan, and there isn’t.”
“They happen to be right about that,” Cunningham said. “There is no concrete plan from the city on the table right now. But by virtue of the fact that the Bears reached out to the city in recent weeks to talk about the lakefront, they have breathed life into the mayor’s efforts.”
The developments also come as Gov. JB Pritzker and Johnson have been bickering over the stadium deal, a mini-feud that was reignighted with Johnson’s comments during his Springfield visit as Pritzker has said there is no real plan for a new football stadium in Chicago. Just Wednesday, Pritzker said he had recently spoken with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and maintained that the Bears and NFL are only considering a new stadium in Arlington Heights or Indiana — not Chicago.
The deal being hashed out in the state capitol largely centers on how much the Bears would pay in property taxes to build the stadium complex on the former Arlington International Racecourse site. The Bears purchased the site in early 2023. Earlier this year, the team began publicly saying it was also considering the site in Hammond after Hoosier lawmakers and the governor of Indiana passed legislation to build a stadium there.
In the ongoing Illinois legislative efforts, the Bears are seeking some $855 million in infrastructure funding, as well as certainty over how much the team would have to pay in property taxes for the next 40 years for building on the Arlington Heights site. Lawmakers are trying to balance those concerns as the public has pushed back about giving away benefits to a multibillion-dollar sports franchise.
On April 22, a bill passed the House 78-32, with 10 Republicans joining the Democratic supermajority in support, intended to help with the Bears’ move to Arlington Heights. But the Senate, since then, has suggested that the House bill needs work and has been negotiating details for an amendment or a new bill.
Cunningham said other obstacles he’s running into with the current negotiations include some lawmakers not being comfortable with allowing the special payments over the 40-year period for the Bears and how that would impact other taxpayers. Also, the Bears haven’t come up with a study to show how traffic would be impacted around the Arlington Heights site, he said.
“The Bears have made a request for a substantial financial commitment from the state to fund infrastructure that would involve roads, bridges around the Arlington Heights site. We would not do that without a traffic study that would direct how those dollars should be spent,” Cunningham said. “So the fact that that is not in place yet is an obstacle from the point of view of the state, trying to develop a capital budget. It’s also created turbulence in the northwest suburbs, where we’ve been hearing from the mayors of towns that border Arlington Heights that they have not been consulted. That they have deep concerns about the effects of increased traffic on their town.”
As far as whether the General Assembly would be able to iron out a deal for the Bears by May 31, Cunningham said he and his colleagues are “going to keep working through this.”
“We’ll continue to work through these obstacles,” he said. “The Bears are going to have to step up their efforts, have to better engage with legislators. I think those things are necessary for this to move forward.”
Tribune reporter Jake Sheridan contributed.