The Illinois General Assembly will deliver the property tax relief the Bears say they need to build a domed stadium in Arlington Heights and throw a bone to Chicago by starting to untangle the traffic bottleneck around Soldier Field and the Museum Campus, a key state lawmaker in stadium talks said Friday.
With the spring legislative session set to wrap up this weekend, State Rep. Kam Buckner (D-Chicago) said he’s confident that Illinois lawmakers will “find a deal that works to keep the Bears in the state of Illinois” and prevent Chicago’s beloved NFL franchise from accepting a far more lucrative offer to move to Hammond, Indiana.
Buckner is the chief sponsor of the mega-projects bill that would allow the Bears to negotiate discounted property tax payments with local school districts and other taxing bodies.
He pushed it through the Illinois House after adding a nominal property tax break for homeowners and a host of economic incentives Chicago could use to develop abandoned rail yard sites like the 78 and the nearby Amtrak site being eyed by the White Sox, the old Michael Reese Hospital site and developer Bob Dunn’s scaled-down One Central project on existing rail tracks west of Soldier Field.
State Sen. Bill Cunningham (D-Chicago) is still trying to hammer out the changes needed to get the bill through the Illinois Senate. Buckner said there is no one in Springfield that he trusts more than Cunningham to be “an effective negotiator who’s practical and logical” enough to “get big things done.”
Cunningham, the Illinois Senate’s president pro tempore, is retiring Dec. 31. This is his final spring session, and he is not about to fumble the ball at the goal line on his way out the door, Buckner said.
“Bill Cunningham will find a way to do something on that end… The structure of our bill is strong… If there are some tweaks, we’re looking forward to seeing what they come up with… Three days doesn’t sound like a lot of time. But three days can be a lifetime,” in Springfield, Buckner said Friday.
“We’re not going to lose the Bears to Hammond… The McCaskey family knows that is a bad move for them. You don’t elevate a platform or grow an organization by shrinking where it’s at.”
Buckner said a “mega-projects bill on Ozempic” that does little more than pave the way for the Bears to exit Soldier Field would be a “tough sell” for Chicago Democrats who “want to see something in there for Chicago.”
“The reason my bill in the House got so much support was because we were able to put together a framework that gave Chicago some tools to compete when it comes to, not just stadiums but economic development writ large,” Buckner said. “Whatever comes out of here in the next couple of days has to be something that at least nods to the fact that there needs to be a plan for the city.”
Buckner said there is no way that as much as $800 million in infrastructure funding needed to ready the Arlington Heights site for stadium development will get done before Sunday unless the traffic study that must precede the funding “falls out of thin air.”
But the traffic bottleneck around Soldier Field and the Museum Campus “needs something on infrastructure regardless of what happens with the Bears” and could get at least some immediate help, he said.
“It’s not connected the way it should be. When events like Lollapalooza happen, they kind of get cut off from everything. It’s hard to get there and get out of there,” Buckner said. “Those things need to be addressed… We can hopefully find ways as we work this budget to do something there.”
Mayor Brandon Johnson has mounted the legislative equivalent of a goal-line stand against the mega-projects bill, while holding out hope for his 2024 plan to build a domed lakefront stadium near Soldier Field. That plan went nowhere because it would require $900 million in hotel tax revenue and $1.5 billion in infrastructure funding.
Johnson’s Hail Mary efforts have further antagonized Gov. JB Pritzker, which has made it more difficult for Buckner and Cunningham to get the ball over the legislative goal line.
Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas — who like Buckner is considering a race for mayor — further complicated the issue with a study questioning the public benefit of giving the Bears a tax break of $1.5 billion over 40 years. The study asserted that benefits are “clear” for big companies like the Bears, but “murky” for most taxpayers.
Buckner accused Pappas of putting the Bears stadium up against a “fantasy baseline where every project magically gets built in Illinois, pays full taxes forever, requires no incentives and faces no interstate competition.”
“That’s not the world we’re living in. Indiana did not pass legislation because they were bored,” Buckner said. “They passed legislation because they understand competition.”