The Chicago Bears are busy gearing up for the new NFL season, but off the field their quest for a new stadium continues to make headlines.
As the team gathered at Stevenson High School for a walk-through practice on Monday, team Chairman George McCaskey spoke briefly to media, and was asked about the process the Bears are going through as they try to get a new domed stadium built either in Indiana or in Illinois.
Currently the team is focusing its efforts on Indiana, and when asked about that process, McCaskey said there could be new information coming out soon about the location of that proposed project.
“We’re doing some due diligence on a second site in Hammond,” he said. “I think Kevin (Warren) and I will have more to report in the coming days.”
After a so-called “PILOT” bill failed to pass the Illinois General Assembly before the conclusion of the legislative session, the Bears announced that they were focusing their stadium efforts on sites in northwest Indiana. There, state officials had paved the way for the project by promising up to $1 billion and a host of other incentives to convince the team to move across the border and to build a new stadium, likely in an area near Hammond.
While McCaskey did not specify the site the team is eyeballing, NBC Chicago’s Mary Ann Ahern reported last month the Bears were looking at a site known as Wolf Lake Terminals in Hammond. The location is just to the west of Interstate 90 and to the southwest of Lost Marsh Golf Course, and is situated just to the east of the Illinois-Indiana state line.
Soil samples were taken from the area and were analyzed, and officials are hopeful that environmental issues encountered at other locations in Hammond will be addressed by shifting the project closer to the state line, with that site just 19 miles from downtown Chicago.
Indiana Gov. Mike Braun, who signed the bill earlier this year aimed at luring the Bears to the state, is continuing to publicly express confidence in the chances of getting the deal finalized.
“I’d say we’re in the red zone. I’ve done so much real estate in my career. Until you ink it, it’s not done, but it’s moved a long distance in a short period of time,” he said during a recent event at Valparaiso.
As the Bears prepare to potentially release more information about the Indiana project site, McCaskey was asked if there was any movement in Illinois, with the team still owning the property of the former Arlington International Racecourse in Arlington Heights.
“No,” he said.
Illinois lawmakers had discussed potentially convening a special session of the legislature, with one of the potential items of debate being a bill aimed at keeping the Bears within the state. That has not yet occurred, and it’s unclear whether Chicago lawmakers will be onboard with an effort to have the Bears build a stadium in the suburbs.
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