Six years into one of the more drawn-out stadium negotiations in NFL history, the Chicago Bears say a decision is imminent. The team owns land in Arlington Heights, Illinois. Indiana has passed legislation and signed it into law. Illinois has a bill moving through its House but has not yet put it to a full floor vote. The Illinois legislative session ends May 31. And Bears leadership has made clear that late spring or early summer is when this ends.
Both team owner George McCaskey and president and CEO Kevin Warren said at the NFL’s annual meetings that they’d like the legislative process wrapped up over the next few months so they can make a final decision. The team’s goal is to open the new stadium in 2030.
For a franchise that has played at Soldier Field since 1971 — and on Chicago’s lakefront in some form for over a century — the question of where the Bears land next is not a routine real estate transaction. It is a civic inflection point for Illinois, for the northwest suburbs, and potentially for Indiana. The economic stakes are significant enough that three separate governments are competing to close the deal.
The Two Sites Still in Play
The Bears own a 326-acre property in Arlington Heights and are exploring a 340-acre purchase in Hammond, Indiana. They have the legislative approval they need in Indiana, but do not own property there yet. In Illinois, they are still seeking tax certainty from the state legislature, which ends its session May 31.
The Arlington Heights site sits on the former Arlington Park horse racing track in Cook County, which the Bears purchased in 2023 for $197.2 million. The Bears have committed over $2 billion toward stadium development there. The fixed-roof stadium and mixed-use district are projected to generate $60 million in new annual tax revenue at local, county, and state levels, and the project would create more than 56,000 construction job years and over 9,000 permanent jobs, with a projected $10 billion in economic impact attributed to statewide construction.
The Hammond site sits near Wolf Lake on the Lake Michigan waterfront just over the Illinois-Indiana state line. Indiana Governor Mike Braun signed Senate Enrolled Act 27 into law in February, creating the framework for a Northwest Indiana Stadium Authority to acquire land, issue bonds, and build a stadium. The Bears issued a statement calling it “the most meaningful step forward” in stadium planning to date.
What Illinois Has — and Hasn’t — Done
The Illinois legislative vehicle is House Bill 910, the so-called megaproject bill sponsored by Rep. Kam Buckner, a Chicago Democrat whose district includes Soldier Field. The House Revenue and Finance Committee voted 13-7 along party lines to send the bill to the floor. The bill would freeze property tax assessments on the sites of megaprojects like the Bears’ proposed stadium in Arlington Heights and instead allow developers to negotiate annual payments directly with local taxing bodies.
The bill passed committee but the full House adjourned without acting on it. Lawmakers return to Springfield April 7, and Buckner has said he is confident a bill will be passed before the spring legislative session ends on May 31. But the path to 60 votes in the House remains complicated. Buckner told NBC 5 Chicago that the parties are still “fine tuning” the legislation so it can get majority support. “I truly believe that we’ll get there quickly. It may take a couple more weeks,” he said. “We’re not going to be blindsided or pushed over the edge by some arbitrary deadline. What we’re doing is the smart and prudent thing to do.”
Governor JB Pritzker has drawn his own lines on the deal. “I am not going to be shaken down by the Bears, and I have set out some very clear guidelines. We are not going to fleece the taxpayers of Illinois,” he said. “If we do something which supports the Bears — which we are working very hard on — it is not something that is going to cost our taxpayers the way it is going to cost Indiana taxpayers.”
Pritzker framed the bill’s next step as belonging to Springfield, telling reporters: “It is a pretty good deal that’s been put on the table that I think seems to have support broadly by the Bears ownership. So it really now is in the hands of the House of Representatives and the Senate to get something done in a timely fashion.”
The Indiana Pressure
Indiana’s signed law gives the Bears a concrete, ready framework across the state line. The Indiana financing plan includes a new 1 percent food and beverage tax in Lake and Porter counties, and a doubling of Lake County’s hotel tax from 5 to 10 percent — revenue mechanisms Indiana’s government is willing to deploy to secure the franchise.
Indiana Governor Mike Braun characterized the Bears’ ongoing due diligence as moving at a “deliberate speed,” saying: “We move at the speed of business, and we made it easy to get where it is.”
The Indiana offer also carries a political message for Springfield. When the Kansas City Chiefs announced a deal to move from Missouri to Kansas, Arlington Heights Mayor Jim Tinaglia said it opened everyone’s eyes. “Maybe they would really leave. Somebody else is doing it,” he said. “It wasn’t about Arlington Heights versus Chicago any longer. This is now about keeping one of the most fabulous franchises in the whole NFL here in Illinois.”
Tinaglia has publicly warned that Springfield needs to act within weeks. The Illinois session clock is the operative deadline.
The Chicago Complication
City of Chicago officials have not made this easy. Chicago’s acting Chief Financial Officer Steven Mahr testified in opposition to the megaprojects bill, arguing that if the state is willing to support infrastructure spending elsewhere to facilitate a new stadium, it should be equally willing to support spending in and around the Museum Campus. “The city of Chicago and the Park District would submit multiple viable proposals for a new publicly owned sports stadium in Chicago,” Mahr said.
Chicago’s opposition reflects an ongoing tension: the lakefront stadium proposal was the city’s preferred option, but Pritzker told reporters there is “a common understanding by most of the General Assembly that they’re not going to be able to build in the city of Chicago,” and the franchise would likely move outside city limits to Arlington Heights or Hammond. Chicago is now lobbying for terms that protect the city from absorbing the financial consequences of losing a long-tenured tenant.
What Bears Leadership Is Actually Saying
Despite the urgency from municipal officials, Bears leadership has been measured. Warren appeared on NBC’s “Pro Football Talk” and dispelled the notion that time is running out. “We don’t have a set deadline, but I am confident that sometime this spring slash summer, we’ll know,” he said.
McCaskey has addressed the cultural weight of potentially moving to Indiana directly. “When the Bears moved from Wrigley Field to Soldier Field, it required an adjustment. When we went to Champaign, it required an adjustment. And whether we go to Arlington Park or to Hammond, there is going to be an adjustment period. People are going to have to be allowed some time to get used to it,” he said. “I think Bears fans are up to it.”
What McCaskey did not say was that the Bears are indifferent to where they land. The team has invested years and real capital into the Arlington Heights property. The preference for Illinois — if Illinois can close the legislative gap — remains evident. What is less clear is whether Springfield can deliver a bill, a vote count, and the infrastructure funding commitment before the session closes and the Bears’ patience runs out.
