As Indiana officials push to lure the Chicago Bears across the border for a new stadium, Gov. JB Pritzker said Monday that he and his staff have made “progress” to incentivize the football team to stay in Illinois.
The governor’s comments come as Pritzker’s January calendar shows he had two scheduled conversations with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell while Goodell was in Chicago for the Jan. 10 Bears-Packers playoff game.
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While here for the game, Goodell joined Bears chairman and CEO Kevin Warren and president George McCaskey on a tour of the team’s Arlington Heights site and sites in northwest Indiana, including one near Wolf Lake in Hammond.
The first conversation between the governor and Goodell was a half-hour phone call scheduled for Jan. 9, while the second was a half-hour discussion between the two on Jan. 12, according to the governor’s calendar entries. The governor’s office declined to comment Monday on how the conversations went or what was said.
But the scheduled talks underscore that the Bears’ stadium efforts have not gone dormant, even as the team said in December it was exploring a move to northwest Indiana after negotiations with Pritzker and his Democratic allies in the Illinois General Assembly hit a deadlock.
The key points of contention in Illinois were over how the state would legislatively or financially assist the team in its desire to build a stadium in Chicago’s northwest suburbs. In particular, the topics revolved around assistance for infrastructure surrounding a proposed Arlington Heights stadium, property tax safety for the team and paying off debt for Soldier Field renovations done more than 20 years ago at the team’s behest.
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Sources familiar with discussions between the Bears and Illinois state officials said the two sides have met regularly since early December to draft legislation for this spring’s legislative session in Springfield. The talks were in line with public infrastructure improvements for or around the Bears’ stadium field in Arlington Heights and so-called megaproject legislation that would make it easier for the Bears to negotiate with local governments on property taxes, sources said. In addition, the governor’s office sought to have the Bears implement measures to make games more accessible, the sources said.
Since the Bears’ December announcement opening the door to a stadium across the border, Indiana’s Republican governor, Mike Braun, has said his administration is “working hard” to lure the Bears and has promoted a bill to create a state authority to “acquire, build, equip, own, lease and finance” a sports stadium.
But on Monday, Pritzker, during an unrelated news conference in southwestern Illinois, struck an upbeat tone when describing Illinois officials’ relationship with the Bears these days.
“There’s a lot of discussion, a lot of conversations going on with the Bears, and frankly, progress has been made. So I’m happy with that,” he said in Belleville, where he and other lawmakers talked about a bond program aimed at spurring economic development in Illinois communities. “But I’ll let the Bears talk about what they want to do and how they want to do it. And obviously, I’m involved in the negotiations, and so is my entire team, as well as members of the legislature.”
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The Tribune reported that in late December, Pritzker’s office signed a new $25,000 contract with an outside attorney to continue advising the administration on negotiations with the Bears through the end of June.
Pritzker also reiterated his stance on the Bears’ pursuit of state incentives on Monday, saying he doesn’t want taxpayer money to pay for the stadium itself, but would be willing to use state money to help the team fund infrastructure, which generally includes road improvements and other transportation-related initiatives.
“We’re helping businesses build the infrastructure, for example, that they would need and other things that are kind of available, again, to any business that’s growing or building something new in the state of Illinois that puts people to work,” the governor said. “You know, those are normal incentives and that’s what I would expect we’ll get with the Bears, you know, depending on where it goes.”
A team consultant estimated last year that infrastructure improvements near Illinois Route 53 and changes to a nearby Metra train line could cost more than $850 million in public funds. Additionally, the Bears would likely need megaproject legislation that would allow them to negotiate property tax bills with local governments.
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Another issue for Bears officials is an outstanding public debt of more than $500 million from the controversial 2003 Soldier Field renovation, a tab currently covered by city hotel taxes and, when that’s not enough, Chicago’s share of state income taxes. The Bears’ lease at Soldier Field expires in 2033, but it can be broken earlier with a penalty, and the team says it will take three years to build its new stadium.
But even with the debt paid off, that may not be enough to satisfy state lawmakers who represent parts of Chicago and are reluctant to incentivize the team to move out of the city limits, even if it is in Arlington Heights.
In Springfield a few weeks ago, Illinois House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch, a Hillside Democrat, sent out a survey to other House Democrats about their position on the Bears issue. The results of that survey were not available.
As for whether he’s serious about the Bears’ interest in moving to Indiana, Pritzker said Monday, “I never take anything as a bluff.”
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“I mean, I’m always concerned about making sure we’re attracting business or keeping business in the state of Illinois,” he said. “So we’re in a consistent conversation with the Chicago Bears — it’s been, by the way, for, I don’t know, a year and a half or two years. And more specifically, I think there’s a real possibility that a lot of the things that we put on the table to work with the Bears are things that they’re willing to do to stay in the state of Illinois.”