A legislative Hail Mary in Illinois ran out of time early Monday as the state House of Representatives did not take up a revised structure for a $5 billion Bears stadium project.
After a frenetic all-night legislative session Sunday night, running into the pre-dawn hours of Monday morning, the state Senate approved at 4:40 a.m. ET a revised stadium structure that would help fund a Bears stadium, but about an hour later, the House of Representatives adjourned without taking up the bill.
The entirely new bill, part of a marathon session to close the state legislature’s spring session, was furiously developed and involved allowing certain municipalities in Cook County to set up their own stadium authorities.
A chosen locale for a stadium would then own a stadium that the Bears would fund privately, but the NFL team would not pay property taxes, in turn giving it the tax certainty it has coveted throughout this long and winding political process. The Bears, however, would pay property taxes on a planned mixed-use development surrounding the stadium.
That bill arrived after a “megaprojects” bill previously approved by the Illinois House of Representatives fizzled in the state Senate due to numerous political complications there.
The state Senate approved the bill by a 37-17 vote at 4:40 a.m. ET, but the House declined to take up the bill.
“There’s a lot of work still ahead of us,” said Illinois House Speaker Chris Welch. “We’ll continue discussions on a number of issues, including our approach to the Bears stadium question, this summer.”
Still, state Senators believe there is a new base from which to work, even if the legislature failed to have a fully passed bill by the end of the spring session.
“I think what we’ve done here with the bill is establish a framework that would enable the Bears to build a stadium in the state of Illinois,” said state Senator Bill Cunningham, a key architect of the new bill. “This gives them property tax certainty … This is the exact same mechanism set up in Northwest Indiana.”
Notably, the new structure for the stadium could also allow Chicago to get back into the race to be the Bears’ long-term home. For months, the team, NFL, and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker have been insistent that the stadium choice is down to a suburban, team-owned parcel in Arlington Heights, Ill., or a competing proposal in Hammond, Ind. Chicago-area leaders, however, have refused to accept that, and played a key role in sinking the prior consideration around the megaprojects legislation.
Because the votes are happening after the stated end of the spring session, the bill must either pass with a supermajority or not take effect until 2027, which is the intended timing of the legislation anyway.
State Lines
The restructured Illinois framework will compete against already approved legislation in Indiana that would fund about 60% of a stadium in Hammond. The team has been consistent that it intends to make a final stadium site choice by early summer. The ongoing deliberations in Illinois only complicate the timetable further.
“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,” the Bears said Monday morning in a statement. “We will provide an update when we have a decision to share.”
The financial math for the team is unquestionably better in Indiana, but accepting it would be leaving their home state since starting as the Decatur Staleys in 1920.
“I’d say [there’s a] 65-35,” chance of the Bears going to Indiana, said that state’s governor, Mike Braun, last week on Fox News, before the latest moves in Illinois. “I’ve done a lot of real estate deals in my time in the real world. They can go south for many reasons, but their legislature really hasn’t tailored anything that they’re interested in. We did it quickly. It impressed them, and they saw what Indiana would be like as a long-term business partner. I can guarantee you it’d be better than being [in Illinois].”
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