The Chicago Bears’ stadium project has attracted interest in Illinois and Indiana, but is another Midwest state preparing to join the fray?
A group of Iowa Republicans filed a bill this week aimed at doing just that, trying to create incentives for the Bears to relocate to the Hawkeye State amid the ongoing drama over where their future home will be constructed.
Senate Bill 2252 was filed this week, aiming to “incentivize the building of a professional sports stadium by a National Football League franchise in the state.”
The bill is part of a program aimed to attract capital investments for businesses that plan to invest at least $1 billion in the state.
“The Chicago Bears are looking for a state that will appreciate them and welcome them with open arms, and we are filing a bill today that says Iowa is happy to be that home,” said Senator Kerry Gruenhagen in a statement to NBC-affiliate KYOU.
The Bears have played their games at Soldier Field since the 1970s, but in recent years they’ve explored a variety of options for a new home. That list has most notably included suburban Arlington Heights, where the Bears purchased the site of the former Arlington International Racecourse and announced plans to build a new stadium there.
Renderings for the Chicago Bears’ new stadium in Arlington Heights were revealed as the community learned more about the potential financial impact of the team’s move. Randy Gyllenhaal reports.
The team has been seeking a variety of proposals to help facilitate that construction, including freezing their property tax rates and obtaining infrastructure help around the stadium, but they’ve met with some resistance on the part of Illinois lawmakers, though negotiations remain ongoing.
That resistance ultimately led the state of Indiana to get involved, with their state Senate passing a bill that would aim to finance construction of a new Bears stadium and lock the team into a 35-year lease at the site.
That site has been the subject of plenty of discussion, with multiple counties in Indiana getting into the action and the Bears revealing that they’re taking the idea seriously amid the ongoing impasse in Illinois.
At various points Chicago sites have been floated as potential options, including on the lakefront just south of their current home at Soldier Field and at the former site of the Michael Reese Hospital, but the team has pivoted away from those sites in pursuit of a stadium project in Arlington Heights.
Urgency is ratcheting up over the project, as Indiana lawmakers have said they will only move forward with their legislation if the Bears indicate that they would move their operations to the state.
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker has said that his administration is in active negotiations with the Bears, talking to the team on a near-daily basis as the General Assembly’s session continues into the end of May.
The governor will deliver his “State of the State” address next week, and it’s possible he could mention the ongoing talks over the Bears in that speech, though he has not yet confirmed he will do so.