The Chicago Bears are leaving Chicago and are now only considering sites in the suburbs of Arlington Heights, Illinois or Hammond, Indiana for the NFL franchise to build a new domed stadium, according to a new release from the franchise.
“The Chicago Bears have exhausted all opportunities to stay in Chicago, which was our initial goal,” the team said in a May 21 statement. “There is no viable site in the city. As a result, the only sites being considered are in Arlington Heights and Hammond.”
Team president Kevin Warren said in April that the Bears plan to select a new stadium in Illinois or Indiana in late spring or early summer. Illinois state lawmakers, who are scheduled to adjourn for their spring session on May 31, have just 10 days to consider a bill aimed at keeping the franchise in Arlington Heights instead of crossing the state line into Indiana.
Lawmakers are mulling allowing the Bears, along with other developers of projects between $100 million and $500 million, to negotiate property tax levels with local municipalities, instead of paying an annual fee based on the property’s assessed value.
If Illinois is chosen, a new domed stadium and surrounding mixed-use district would be built on 327 acres formerly home to the now-demolished Arlington Park racetrack, which Churchill Downs, Inc., sold to the Bears organization in 2023. It is about 25 miles northwest of Soldier Field, where the Chicago Bears have played since the early city1970.
Indiana lawmakers jumped into the mix earlier this year and are offering the Bears a public-private partnership to build a domed stadium in northwest Indiana at a site near Wolf Lake, also about 25 miles from Soldier Field.
In February, Indiana Gov. Mike Braun signed a bill that would create the Northwest Indiana Stadium Authority to oversee land acquisition, financing and leasing contracts. The stadium would be funded by a 12% ticket tax, hoteliers tax and regional food and drink taxes. The Bears would be responsible for the construction debt while paying zero property taxes for the stadium.
Braun wrote in February to X that “Indiana is open for business and our growth-friendly environment continues to attract important opportunities like this partnership with the Chicago Bears. We have identified a promising site near Wolf Lake in Hammond and have established a broad framework for negotiating a final agreement.”
Both proposed that the remaining stadium/mixed-use districts would cost $5 billion and meet the Bears’ goal of allowing year-round use of the facility for events such as concerts and hosting a Super Bowl.
In April 2024, the Bears had unveiled a plan to build a $4.6 billion domed stadium on the city’s museum campus property overlooking Lake Michigan. Insisting at the time that it no longer had plans to build a stadium in the suburbs, the team had said it would demolish its 2003 rebuilt home, Soldier Field, and replace it with gardens and athletic fields.
While Illinois state Sen. Bill Cunningham recently claimed there had been contact in late April between the Bears and the city of Chicago about the team looking again at the possibility of building a new stadium on the shores of Lake Michigan, the Bears’ most recent statement appears to quash that notion.
Illinois Governor JB Prizker said at a recent press conference that “we hope to see something before May 31st. on the megaprojects bill in Illinois.” Pritzker said at the same press conference that Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson “has no plans” to keep the Bears in Chicago.
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