There’s always next session.
As the Chicago Bears gear up this summer for their upcoming season on the field, they’ll be refining their business pitch off the field after state lawmakers concluded their spring legislative session this week without acting on the team’s request for public dollars to help build a new lakefront stadium.
That pushes their drive for a dome to the fall veto session, when the Bears will try to avoid going three-and-out in their Springfield stadium efforts. They came up empty-handed in a push last year for a change in state law to freeze property taxes on land they bought in Arlington Heights to make a potential suburban move more palatable.
Despite an equally cool reception from lawmakers this year, team officials insisted they’re still making forward progress — and their full focus remains on building a new stadium just south of Soldier Field.
“We continue to have productive conversations since we unveiled our vision to invest more than $2 billion of private money to a new, publicly owned enclosed stadium which will create 43,000 construction jobs and more than 4,000 permanent jobs,” a team spokesman said in an email. “We look forward to continuing to meet with elected officials, community leaders, business leaders, residents and fans to collaborate on ways to make this massive economic development project for Illinois a reality.”
Sources close to the Bears’ Springfield lobbying effort said they weren’t expecting lawmakers to move a funding bill during the hectic final weeks of session in which lawmakers hammered out a $53.1 billion state budget. Instead, they were focused on talks with leaders “to continue refining” their proposal, sources said.
And while Bears president Kevin Warren said “time is money” while pushing for legislative help during his public pitch in April, the team thinks there’s still plenty left on the clock to keep the proposal viable.
Bears executives have said they need the state to issue $1.2 billion in new bonds, backed by the 2% city hotel tax used to build Guaranteed Rate Field and renovate Soldier Field, to cover $900 million in stadium costs, plus a reserve fund protecting against dips in hotel revenue.
No such bills have been introduced — and the team hasn’t yet formally asked for any from legislative leaders who have thrown cold water on their stadium vision for months.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker has called the Bears pitch “a nonstarter.” Illinois House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch, D-Hillside, warned the team “there’s no environment” for stadium assistance. And in an end-of-session statement, Illinois Senate President Don Harmon, D-Oak Park, trumpeted the fact that “there are zero dollars for any new professional sports stadiums” in state spending plans.
Legislative leaders have urged them to team up with the White Sox — who are eyeing the same pot of tax revenue for a South Loop stadium — on a joint funding proposal. The sides have talked but are reluctant to tie their projects together, sources said.
Representatives for the White Sox and partnering developer Related Midwest didn’t have any immediate comment on their fruitless legislative session.
State Sen. Robert Peters, the South Side Democrat whose district includes Soldier Field, said the Bears “did a much better job than last year” by virtue of committing $2 billion of their own money for the project.
But he’s skeptical of any movement when lawmakers kick off the veto session, particularly for up to $1.5 billion the Bears are seeking for infrastructure upgrades around the Museum Campus. The team says it needs at least $325 million, for a minimum total public ask of $1.2 billion.
“There were broad conversations around funding infrastructure, but their people could tell the appetite for that is basically nonexistent,” Peters said. “There’s no interest in giving billionaires a free stadium development, and if anything’s going to happen with bonding, it has to be done with equity.”
He echoed calls from Pritzker and the Illinois House Democratic Women’s Caucus to include the Red Stars, Sky and other professional women’s teams in stadium funding talks.
Northwest Side state Rep. Eva-Dina Delgado, D-Chicago, introduced a bill that would require state officials to issue bonds for women’s professional sports facilities whenever bonds are issued for men’s facilities.
“This spring, we have heard a number of costly requests from some of the most successful and celebrated men’s sports franchises in our state, while women’s teams do not yet even have a seat at the table with the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority,” Delgado said in a statement. “Many of us do not support public financing of professional team facilities, but we believe strongly that any discussions with the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority must be done so equitably with women’s teams a part of those conversations.”