{"id":998667,"date":"2026-08-13T18:46:17","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T18:46:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/998667\/"},"modified":"2026-08-13T18:46:17","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T18:46:17","slug":"chicago-bears-stadium-focus-remains-on-hammond-not-illinois","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/998667\/","title":{"rendered":"Chicago Bears stadium focus remains on Hammond, not Illinois"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Chicago Bears have had \u201cminimal\u201d discussions with Illinois legislators since the NFL franchise voted in June to focus its stadium efforts on northwest Indiana.<\/p>\n

Bears Chairman George McCaskey and President\/CEO Kevin Warren reiterated Thursday during a news conference at Halas Hall that the team remains focused on building a stadium over state lines in Hammond. Those efforts have zeroed in on two sites: the Lost Marsh Golf Course and the Wolf Lake Terminals.<\/p>\n

Warren said due diligence has been completed on the Lost Marsh location, while the process is ongoing at Wolf Lake Terminals.<\/p>\n

Both Warren and McCaskey used the word \u201cminimal\u201d to describe ongoing communications with Illinois lawmakers this summer.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know why it hit a dead end in Springfield,\u201d Warren said. \u201cBut we\u2019ve been very clear the last couple years the things that we\u2019ve always needed is property tax certainty, we need infrastructure certainty. That\u2019s what we\u2019ve needed. So that has not changed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"BearsBears President\/CEO Kevin Warren speaks Thursday, Aug. 13, 2026, during a news conference at Halas Hall in Lake Forest. (Brian Cassella\/Chicago Tribune)<\/p>\n

The Bears announced June 5<\/a> that their board of directors had voted to proceed with plans for a new stadium in Hammond. That announcement came less than a week after the Illinois legislature adjourned for the summer without coming to a resolution on last-ditch efforts<\/a> in the House and Senate to keep the franchise in Illinois.<\/p>\n

The bill that passed through the House would have allowed the Bears to negotiate a special tax payment with local government bodies in the Arlington Heights area instead of paying higher property taxes. The proposal in the Senate would have created a public finance authority, essentially establishing a public-private partnership in which a sports team such as the Bears could have built a stadium on land that would be, or would become, publicly owned to avoid property taxes on the facility.<\/p>\n

Speaking publicly for the first time since discussions fell apart in Springfield, McCaskey said the Bears aren\u2019t second-guessing their strategy to get a deal done in Illinois.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe felt we had presented a pretty compelling case that a stadium in Arlington would be beneficial not only for the Village of Arlington Heights, but for the community and for the entire state really,\u201d McCaskey said. \u201cTremendous driver of economic activity. Job creation. Tax revenue. Sales revenue. Ultimately, that argument was unsuccessful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gov. J.B. Pritzker has said he is open to holding a special session<\/a> of the Illinois General Assembly to help keep the Bears in Illinois. Pritzker said Thursday in Springfield that his office has been in contact with the Bears since the General Assembly adjourned June 1.<\/p>\n

But in the 2\u00bd months since adjournment, the governor said the team still has \u201cnot presented a bill\u201d to allow the Bears to build a stadium in Arlington Heights or elsewhere in Illinois.<\/p>\n

\u201cPart of the Bears\u2019 job here is, of course, to talk to legislators. There were legislators who voted in favor of one or the other of the bills,\u201d Pritzker said during a news conference to mark the start of this year\u2019s Illinois State Fair.<\/p>\n

\u201cRemember, everyone, we passed a bill in the House, we passed a bill in the Senate. Those bills were not combined. \u2026There was no compromise reached between the two bills, but the Bears themselves have to figure out which ones of the parts of those bills they want in a final bill and, of course, to gather support from the legislature.\u201d<\/p>\n

The stadium saga<\/a> has dragged on more than five years. The Bears first announced they were bidding to purchase Arlington International Racecourse in June 2021. In that time, the team\u2019s focus has flip-flopped from Arlington Heights to the Chicago lakefront, back to Arlington Heights and now to northwest Indiana.<\/p>\n

McCaskey declined to elaborate on what discussions with Illinois lawmakers have looked like this summer.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are all adults here,\u201d McCaskey said. \u201cWe can have constructive conversations, and I don\u2019t think it has to be who calls who first. If there are substantive discussions to be had, let\u2019s have them. In Indiana, they have been very proactive, very communicative, very solution-oriented.\u201d<\/p>\n

Warren also praised the \u201ccan-do attitude\u201d of lawmakers in Indiana.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe representatives from the state of Indiana, all the way from the governor\u2019s office to representatives of northwest Indiana, have been phenomenal partners,\u201d Warren said. \u201cThey\u2019ve been stellar to work with, very professional.\u201d<\/p>\n

McCaskey noted that whether the Bears move to Arlington Heights or Hammond, the team won\u2019t change its name from the Chicago Bears.<\/p>\n

He also said he understands the anxiety that Bears fans in Illinois might feel about their team leaving the state.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to require an adjustment,\u201d McCaskey said. \u201cBut when I\u2019ve driven that route, other than a sign telling me so, I wouldn\u2019t know that I\u2019ve just crossed the state border.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd as Kevin said, once people see the building, once they get in there, once they understand that our top priority from day one was a world-class stadium experience, we think we\u2019ll make that adjustment. We think Bears fans are up for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Warren declined to provide a timeline for when the Bears want to break ground on a new stadium or when one might open.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy wife told me about six months ago, don\u2019t give any more target dates, so just get the work done,\u201d Warren said. \u201cSo I think the target is the right time. We\u2019ll know when it is. But I will say we\u2019re making very, very good progress here.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Chicago Bears have had \u201cminimal\u201d discussions with Illinois legislators since the NFL franchise voted in June to…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":998668,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5124],"tags":[11438,307293,252037,110831,960,531,208502,42276,5386,1818,12084,42275,209275,21479],"class_list":["post-998667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-chicago","tag-arlington-heights","tag-bears-hammond","tag-bears-indiana","tag-bears-stadium","tag-chicago","tag-chicago-bears","tag-chicago-bears-stadium","tag-george-mccaskey","tag-il","tag-illinois","tag-jb-pritzker","tag-kevin-warren","tag-northwest-indiana","tag-soldier-field"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117089691058198614","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/998667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=998667"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/998667\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/998668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=998667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=998667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=998667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}