Springfield, IL (CAPITOL CITY NOW) – Despite a Hail Mary heave from the Illinois Senate in the final hours of the spring legislative session, state lawmakers ultimately failed to reach the end zone on a bill incentivizing the Chicago Bears to build a new stadium in Illinois. 

The Senate voted to approve the amended measure 37-17 with bipartisan support around 3:30 a.m. Monday morning after working through the night. Acknowledging the late hour, Sen. Bill Cunningham, D-Chicago, the bill’s sponsor, said just before the vote that “some of the best, most memorable victories have been in double or triple overtime.”

But across the rotunda nearly an hour later, the House adjourned without taking up the Senate proposal. House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch, D-Hillside, told members that “there’s a lot of work still ahead of us.”

“We’ll continue discussions on a number of issues, including our approach to the Bears stadium question, this summer,” Welch said. 

In a brief interview with Capitol News Illinois after the House adjourned, Welch said he believes the legislature will tackle the stadium question “sooner than later,” but not in a special session. He also defended the decision not to move forward with a vote on the hastily crafted bill. 

“I think our caucus is used to processes,” Welch said. “Our caucus is used to taking our time and doing it right.”

But in a statement released minutes later, the Bears said they have no plans to adjust their timeline for deciding on a future home. The team has a standing offer from Indiana to move across the state line to Hammond.

“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 team said in a statement. “We will provide an update when we have a decision to share.”

Senate’s game plan

A day removed from delivering the bombshell that a megaprojects bill designed to keep the Bears in Illinois was dead, Cunningham relayed “essentially an offer” of tax certainty to the team but utilizing a different method than the payment in lieu of taxes.

“I think it’s a pretty good one,” the Chicago Democrat told reporters late Sunday night as lawmakers barreled towards the end of their spring legislative session. “I think it aligns with their goals. And they may not take it — but that’s up to them.”    

Instead of a negotiated PILOT on a private development, the plan called for allowing municipalities to set up stadium authorities that could own and finance professional sports stadiums. Since the facility would be owned by the public authority, the Bears would escape paying property taxes altogether. 

“I think what we’ve done here with this bill today is establish a framework that would enable the Bears to build a stadium in the state of Illinois,” Cunningham said.

The bill would enable Cook County municipalities with populations greater than 70,000 to create local stadium authorities that could own and finance professional sports stadiums. While not Bears-specific, the legislation would likely have set the team up to make a stadium deal with either Chicago or Arlington Heights — a level playing field city lawmakers sought.

However, the municipal stadium authority would have the power to issue revenue bonds to fund stadium construction that can be funded through local tax revenue and local, state and federal financial assistance along with private contributions.

And the land surrounding the stadium, expected to be part of a mixed-use stadium district, would not be subject to the property tax exemption. But it would be eligible for a STAR bond district designation. This would allow stadium district project costs to be reimbursed using bond proceeds backed by future state sales tax revenue generated by the development.

The Bears have said they are only focused on a privately-owned stadium in Arlington Heights or a publicly owned stadium site near Wolf Lake in Hammond, Indiana. 

And after months of Illinois lawmakers touting the megaprojects approach versus stadium deals of the past, Cunningham acknowledged that the bill “is the exact same mechanic set up in Northwest Indiana.”

‘Tax certainty’

The Bears have long said they need “tax certainty” to move forward with a stadium project in Illinois. For the past three years, the team pushed for a megaprojects bill that would have allowed them to negotiate a lower property tax payment for up to 40 years.

The megaprojects tool, which would have been available for large developments across the state, had Pritzker’s backing and passed the House last month. But it did not have enough support in the Senate with legislators expressing concerns about the impact of local property tax revenue and wary of incentivizing the Bears’ exit from the city.

“Well, let me put it this way: I had a senator say to me that that approach further breaks an already broken property tax system, and I think that senator expressed a notion that many senators held,” Cunningham said. “The public ownership structure here provides a clear public benefit, and I think that’s why senators are more likely to support this than the other approach.”

The team’s decision

The deal in Indiana calls for more than $1 billion in public subsidies to build a publicly owned stadium. The Bears would keep all revenue generated by the building and have the option to buy it for $1 once bonds are paid off.

The Bears have committed $2 billion to stadium construction in Arlington Heights and Hammond but have pledged to finance an Illinois project privately. 

Pritzker and state lawmakers have long ruled out direct public subsidies for stadium construction. But in the Senate’s bill, Cunningham acknowledged that “if they choose to, they can use that authority to raise taxes.”

“I would just point out that, given what the Bears have told us, that shouldn’t be necessary here,” he said. “The Bears have said they will finance the stadium, so if an authority does decide to do this, I would imagine they would take the Bears up on that offer.”

But without action from state lawmakers, the Bears now move forward toward a decision without the property tax certainty they sought in Illinois.

Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.