The Chicago Bears board of directors voted Friday to further explore Hammond, Ind., as the team’s priority location for its next stadium. The vote comes less than a week after the spring session of the Illinois Legislature concluded with no solutions and no new legislation available to allow the Bears to proceed with a stadium project on the 326-acre property they own in suburban Arlington Heights, Ill.
For months, the Bears have vowed to complete an evaluation by late spring or early summer of two potential locations for a new stadium: Arlington Heights or Hammond.
In a joint statement Friday, Bears chairman George McCaskey and president and CEO Kevin Warren confirmed the team’s plan to advance its stadium development project approximately 25 miles from Chicago in Indiana.
“We believe a world-class stadium project in Hammond will transform the region, connecting Northwest Indiana to the South Side of Chicago through the Loop and across neighborhoods and suburbs stretching north of the city,” they said. “It will bring Chicagoland together and deliver new opportunities to its residents and businesses.”
Friday’s development marks the first time the Bears’ board has voted on the stadium situation, confirming the organization’s serious interest in a potential project in Indiana. The vote, however, does not represent a “no turning back” moment in this prolonged saga. The Bears still face a heavy lift in working with local and state officials in Indiana to solidify a plan for a new stadium. Illinois lawmakers remain confident the Bears will allow them to work toward a new plan to keep the team.
Given the repeated delays in passing legislation in Illinois that would help the team with tax certainty and infrastructure needs, Friday’s announcement shouldn’t come as a surprise. Still, it’s not a final decision to build in Indiana, either.
In February, with the Bears in mind, Indiana signed into law a bill to create a stadium authority empowered to acquire land and create financing mechanisms for a new stadium.
The team intends to select a stadium site in Hammond and proceed with exploring negotiations and planning within that state. For an Indiana project to launch, the Bears still need to select the exact location of a stadium site, then complete, among other things, ongoing environmental and traffic studies. The team is also working toward receiving concrete assurances on how any such stadium project would be financed, with the newly established Northwest Indiana Stadium Authority heavily involved.
Eventually, if the Bears check a multitude of boxes in Indiana, they would still need to present plans to the NFL stadium committee and the league finance committee.
Indiana Gov. Mike Braun posted on X that his state was ready to welcome the Bears, emphasizing the potential economic boost for that region.
“We look forward to building a partnership as strong as the ’85 Bears defense, creating opportunities and economic growth that will benefit our state and the Bears organization for decades to come,” Braun said.
By the same token, if Illinois officials remain serious about keeping the team and are confident a plan to move forward can materialize via legislation, they now face new pressure to accelerate their efforts to keep the Bears in the state — and specifically at the team’s desired site in Arlington Heights.
Illinois state Rep. Kam Buckner, who was one of the leads in getting a Bears-backed megaprojects bill approved by the House earlier this spring, said in a statement that he had talked to Warren early Friday, and that the Bears president committed to continuing discussions around a possible Illinois stadium project, despite the team’s push to advance their exploration of Hammond.
Buckner said the team’s statement Friday described “a process that is continuing, rather than reaching a conclusion.”
“Neither the statement nor my conversation with Kevin suggested that Illinois is off the table,” Buckner said. “In fact, our discussion was forward-looking and centered on continuing conversations.”
Matt Hill, a spokesperson for Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, identified Friday’s development as yet another shift in the Bears’ stadium location desires.
“Today,” Hill said, “appears to be another instance of that after Illinois leaders have been working with the Bears in good faith. Governor Pritzker has always been clear that he wants the Bears to stay in Illinois and remains open to a sensible solution that protects taxpayers.”
In June 2021, the Bears bid on the 326-acre Illinois property that was once the home of the Arlington Park racetrack and closed on the project in the spring of 2023 with a purchase price of $197.2 million.
Multiple sources with knowledge of the situation emphasized Friday that the potential revival of a downtown Chicago stadium project pitch was nowhere near the table. One source described it as “nothing more than a red herring” by Chicago-based politicians to divert attention from the lack of progress lawmakers had made to advance the Bears’ suburban stadium pitch.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, who has been emphatic this week that a city option for the next Bears stadium should remain on the table, maintained his outlook after the vote Friday.
“Without a final site selection, until we see shovels in the ground in Hammond, the city will continue to engage in discussions grounded in the interests of our residents,” Johnson said.
Chris Welch, the Speaker of the House of Representatives in Illinois, also issued a statement Friday that, in April, the Illinois House passed the megaprojects bill the Bears had championed to aid with stadium funding through a payment-in-lieu-of-taxes structure. That bill collapsed in the Senate on the final weekend of the legislative session in Springfield last week and never made it to a vote inside that chamber.
“While Indiana is willing to raise taxes and promise $1 billion in taxpayer funds,” Welch said, “Illinois has focused on the needs of working families who want relief at the gas pump, at the store and on their insurance bills — not taxpayer-funded stadiums. Illinois remains open to ongoing efforts to secure the Bears in Illinois. However, it will take time to get it right.”
The Bears’ current lease at Soldier Field runs through 2033.
After years of waiting in Illinois, the Bears’ patience is being tested. Even with Friday’s vote by the board of directors, team leaders must decide how much time they’ll offer state lawmakers to bring a workable new proposal to the table.