Hammond, Indiana, Mayor Thomas McDermott Jr. isn’t setting a hard deadline on the Chicago Bears‘ stadium deal, but he’s pointing to September as the month it could finally become real, and said he is hopeful the city will have something concrete in place next month, that is, in September.
That timeline hinges entirely on environmental testing at the team’s preferred Hammond site, a process that has already pushed the project back several months.
McDermott delivered the update Tuesday in a conversation with Inside Indiana Business host Gerry Dick, making clear the Bears, not Hammond, control the calendar.
McDermott’s Latest Bears Stadium Timeline
The Bears have zeroed in on one location among the sites they’ve evaluated in Hammond, and that property is now undergoing extensive environmental testing to determine whether the ground can support a domed stadium and whether contamination issues could slow construction, according to Inside Indiana Business. That added testing is the specific reason the timeline has slipped by several months, McDermott said.
“Only they know the timeline. Anything else is pure speculation,” McDermott said, according to Inside Indiana Business.
McDermott insists the delay is not a red flag.
“In other words, all is going well, and progress is being made,” McDermott said. “The Bears are totally focused on Hammond only. There is no other serious discussion about any other possibility for a stadium site other than Hammond, Indiana.”
Hammond officials are also coordinating with U.S. Sens. Todd Young and Jim Banks as they work to clear remaining obstacles for the stadium, McDermott said. The mayor has spent months touting the project as a transformation point for the city’s northern end, an area state officials backed with up to $1 billion in incentives after the Illinois Legislature failed to pass a competing tax package earlier this year.
George McCaskey Addresses Bears Stadium Search
Bears Chairman George McCaskey struck a similar note around the same time, telling reporters at a team walk-through practice that the Bears are eyeing a second Hammond site.
“We’re doing some due diligence on a second site in Hammond,” McCaskey said. “I think Kevin Warren and I will have more to report in the coming days,” he added, as quoted by NBC Chicago.
McCaskey was also asked whether the Bears have revived any interest in Arlington Heights, where the team still owns the former racetrack property in Illinois.
He gave a one-word answer: “No.”
Indiana Gov. Mike Braun, who signed the legislation authorizing the state’s stadium incentives, described negotiations as being in “the red zone” during a recent appearance, while cautioning that until a deal is signed, nothing is truly finished.
McDermott and McCaskey’s comments, delivered within a day of each other, point toward the same conclusion. Hammond remains the singular focus, even as the environmental review keeps the exact groundbreaking date in flux.
The stadium chase has already stretched across most of 2026. McDermott once floated a groundbreaking as early as this summer, a target that slipped once the Bears widened their environmental review to a second parcel near Wolf Lake. Each shift has come with the same message from both sides of the state line: Hammond, not Arlington Heights, remains the plan.
For Bears fans hoping for a shovel-in-the-ground moment, September now looks like the next real checkpoint. With training camp underway and the regular season approaching, the franchise’s stadium math keeps running in parallel with its football calendar, and McDermott’s message Tuesday was that patience remains the only real strategy.
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