Arlington Heights rallies for new Chicago Bears stadium

As competition for a new Chicago Bears stadium intensifies, suburban fans and leaders plan to rally Wednesday night to bring the team to Arlington Heights — with a new urgency to fight off a bid from Indiana.

The Indiana Senate recently passed a bill to create a northwest Indiana sports stadium authority to finance, build, and lease an arena.

But Rolling Meadows Mayor Lara Sanoica, who supports bringing the Bears to neighboring Arlington Heights, issued a statement that the proposed Indiana law would be a bad deal for workers.

“Indiana’s sales pitch is that you can build a world-class stadium by shortchanging the workers who build it,” Sanoica said. “Illinois doesn’t work that way. We know our families deserve better than a race to the bottom.”

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The Indiana bill prohibits project labor agreements on the stadium project. Such agreements, Sanoica said, ensure that construction workers receive union-scale wages, retirement benefits and apprenticeships. The Indiana Senate also eliminated participation goals for minority-owned and women-owned businesses.

In contrast, the Illinois Mega Projects Bill that the Bears want requires a project labor agreement and a goal of awarding 20% of contracts to minority-owned businesses.

The Mega Projects bill would allow the Bears, or any other sponsor of a major development, to negotiate long-term property taxes with local taxing bodies.

It wouldn’t cost the state a dime. The Bears propose paying for their own $2 billion enclosed stadium. But team officials want the state to help pay for an estimated $855 million in infrastructure costs for things like new roads, rail access and water mains.

Arlington Heights Mayor Jim Tinaglia said he thinks Illinois lawmakers are making progress to counter Indiana’s offer.

“This is no longer Arlington Heights versus Chicago,” he said. “This is about doing what we need to keep the Bears here in Illinois.”

Local school leaders, who would be most affected by any property tax deal, support the Illinois legislation. They would be able to broker their own deal, as they did in a short-term deal that sets the Bears tax at $3.6 million annually — more than the former Arlington International Racecourse site ever paid.

The team bought the 326-are site for $197 million in February of 2023. They announced plans for a $5 billion multi-use project to include hotels, restaurants, housing and parks.

When tax negotiations temporarily bogged down, the team shifted its focus to instead propose a new stadium on the lakefront in Chicago, to replace the team’s current home at Soldier Field. That would have cost some $2.5 billion in taxpayer funding, but state leaders said they wouldn’t do it, and the plan went nowhere.

After Illinois lawmakers failed to even consider the Mega Projects deal, the team surprised everyone by saying they were looking into possibly moving to northwest Indiana. Sites in Hammond, Gary and Portage have been proposed.

That got Illinois leaders’ attention. This week, Gov. J.B. Pritzker said state officials have been meeting with the team and making progress. Pritzker repeatedly has said the state won’t pay for a stadium, but would be open to paying for infrastructure, as is commonly done with big projects.

State legislative leaders also expressed recent openness to the Mega Projects deal. But Chicago lawmakers have suggested that any deal would need some way to pay off the remaining debt of more than $500 million for the 2003 renovation of Soldier Field.

The Arlington Heights rally, sponsored by the non-profit suburban marketing group Chicago Northwest and a group of local residents and business leaders called Touchdown Arlington, is to feature local leaders calling for state lawmakers to pass the Mega Projects bill.

The Bears have said the project would create thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in economic benefits. But economists warn that such projects typically are bad deals for taxpayers, because stadiums are closed most of the time, generate only temporary or part-time jobs, and largely take away spending from other types of entertainment.

The Republican-majority Indiana House is expected to take up the Bears legislation, and possibly make changes, before lawmakers aim to adjourn February 27. Indiana House Speaker Todd Huston is sponsoring the bill, calling it a huge economic opportunity, but wants a commitment from the Bears before finalizing the legislation.

Any new enclosed stadium would compete with the retractable-roofed Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis for events like concerts, college playoffs and the Super Bowl. Any new taxes in northwest Indiana are not likely to be well-received by residents who are already protesting skyrocketing utility bills.

The Democrat-controlled Illinois General Assembly session ends May 31. A stadium would take about three years to build, and the Bears wanted to start construction last year.