No Tax Deal for Chicago Bears as Lawmakers Close Session

State lawmakers left the Chicago Bears waiting at the goal line.

The Illinois General Assembly adjourned its spring session over the weekend without passing legislation that could have eased the Bears’ move to a new stadium in Arlington Heights, the Chicago Tribune reported.

State Rep. Mary Beth Canty, a Democrat representing Chicago’s northwest suburbs, said lawmakers were “super close” to advancing a compromise on property tax legislation widely seen as crucial to the team’s suburban stadium plans but ultimately ran out of time.

The Bears, who shifted focus in May away from a $5 billion lakefront stadium near Soldier Field, have centered efforts on redeveloping the former Arlington International Racecourse, which the team purchased two years ago.

The dream of a domed lakefront stadium in Chicago faced headwinds in Springfield after the Bears asked the state last year to take on $900 million in debt and spend $1.5 billion on infrastructure. Skepticism pushed the franchise back toward Arlington Heights, where the team has made progress with the village and local school districts over property tax disputes.

In the session’s final days, lawmakers held closed-door talks on potential compromise language that would have allowed “a weighted vote” among all local taxing bodies to set a property tax payment structure for development projects, while imposing state guardrails such as time limits on those agreements, according to the outlet. But no formal legislation materialized before adjournment.

Not everyone agreed a deal was close.

State Rep. Kam Buckner, a Chicago Democrat whose district includes Soldier Field, warned the Bears that any push for state tax protections would need to go through the Chicago delegation.

“There will be no chicanery, no shortcuts, and no sidestepping the people of Chicago,” Buckner said.

The Bears have recently deepened private negotiations with Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s team, bringing on a political consultant to advise the effort. Pritzker’s office hired outside legal counsel to evaluate the proposals’ impact on Illinois taxpayers.

The team’s relocation effort is stalled for now, with continued negotiations needed at the local and state levels before any stadium deal can move forward.

Pritzker has consistently signaled that he hopes the Bears stay in Chicago but is skeptical of providing taxpayer dollars to fund a private stadium. He has expressed general support for mechanisms like STAR bonds to finance large-scale local projects, though he emphasized that any discussion of those tools wasn’t specific to the Bears.

— Judah Duke