As the Chicago Bears do due diligence on stadium sites in northwest Indiana, Mayor Brandon Johnson is again arguing the team should remain in the city.
During a forum event on Wednesday hosted by NBC 5, Telemundo Chicago and WVON, Johnson was asked about the team’s shift in focus from their owned site in Arlington Heights to multiple sites just across the state line in Hammond, with the state of Indiana pledging funding assistance to construct the project.
“The best idea for the people of Chicago is for the Bears to remain in Chicago,” he said. “No one has produced a plan except for me. Everything else is just speculation.”
Johnson’s pitch has been to build a stadium just to the south of the current location at Soldier Field, with the plan including a domed stadium as well as improved access for public transit and better traffic flow near the stadium.
Johnson pointed to a recent concert at the stadium, and complaints he received about traffic around the site, as evidence the site would need to be adjusted to accommodate crowds. He also pointed to the inability of residents to access the lakefront during major events like Lollapalooza as an incentive to reconfigure the area.
“The ingress-egress is a problem over there,” he said. “400,000 people came to Chicago for Lollapalooza, and the Museum Campus doesn’t benefit because the people are cut off from being able to wander off, even if they just accidentally stumble upon the museum.”
Johnson committed during the forum to continue discussions with the Illinois General Assembly over a variety of topics, including a potential stadium site in the city.
The Bears have been seeking to construct a new domed stadium as part of an effort to attract large-scale events like the Final Four and Super Bowl to the area. During the course of those discussions, they have floated the idea of retrofitting Soldier Field with a dome, but they also have purchased the site of the former Arlington International Racecourse, with the intent of building a stadium in the Chicago suburb.
That plan has run into some roadblocks, with the General Assembly failing to pass a so-called PILOT (payment in lieu of taxes) bill that would have given the team property tax certainty at the site. The Bears have also sought infrastructure funding to improve transit access and other features around the site, but that bill also has not passed the legislature.
Finally, the state of Indiana jumped into the conversation, approving a plan to provide financing options for a stadium around the Hammond area.
As a result, the Bears have said they are prioritizing a northwest Indiana stadium project, doing due diligence on multiple locations.
Still, the team has not closed the door on any other sites, leaving Illinois lawmakers and the mayor of Chicago to continue honing their pitches for the project to be undertaken in the Land of Lincoln.
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