Gov. JB Pritzker (D-IL) criticized Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, saying the mayor has “no plan” to keep the National Football League’s Chicago Bears in the city after three years in office.
The blunt rebuke comes as the Bears weigh where to build a new stadium. The NFL is currently considering two sites: Arlington Heights, Illinois, and Hammond, Indiana, a city right across the Illinois border and about 23 miles from the Bears’ current home, Soldier Field. While many Chicago leaders want the team to remain in the city, momentum has increasingly shifted toward the suburban and out-of-state proposals.
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Pritzker said Johnson has failed to present a serious effort to keep the Bears in Chicago.
“He has come up with no plan at all about how the Bears would end up in the city of Chicago, so that’s problematic,” Pritzker said. “I’d love them to be in the city, but we are three years in [the Johnson administration], and he still has no plan. The Bears have said publicly — again — that they have now only two options, and that’s the state of Indiana and Arlington Heights.”
The governor also accused Johnson of waiting too long to engage state leaders on the issue.
“The mayor has shown up every spring — at the end of session — to pronounce what he would like to see happen, and, as you know, I present my budget to the legislature in February, so that seems like a good time period to come talk to the governor’s office,” Pritzker said. “We have seen almost nothing out of the mayoral administration here on that subject, or, really, any other, so to show up in May and have a bunch of demands seems late in the game.”
Johnson’s administration, meanwhile, has continued to argue there is still a path to keeping the Bears in Chicago.
Last week, Johnson adviser Jason Lee told the Chicago Sun-Times that both the Arlington Heights and Hammond proposals face significant obstacles, leaving the door open for a return to negotiations with the city.
“I’m not saying there’s no world in which they work. I’m saying that both of them have challenges … And as long as that remains the case, then there’s always the realistic possibility that you have to make a pivot” back to Chicago, Lee said.
The Bears pushed back on those comments, telling the Chicago Sun-Times that the only viable stadium options are in Arlington Heights and Hammond. A decision is expected later this spring or early summer, the team said.
The Arlington Heights proposal faces major hurdles in Illinois. The General Assembly would need to approve a massive property tax break along with roughly $855 million in infrastructure funding to prepare the former racetrack site for development.
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Indiana, meanwhile, has already advanced its proposal through the legislature. Gov. Mike Braun (R-IN) signed a bill creating a stadium finance authority that would allow the state to collect revenue from tickets, hotel rooms, restaurants, and tolls to support the project.
Under Indiana’s proposal, the publicly owned stadium would be built for the Bears while the team would keep all revenue generated from games, concerts, and other events.
