Overview
- Negotiations are in a late-stage push with the Illinois spring session set to end at 11:59 p.m. Sunday and lawmakers racing to approve a PILOT measure that would fix the team’s property-tax terms.
- Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas’ office estimates the Bears could save roughly $1.5 billion in property taxes over 40 years under the proposed arrangement, a figure that has intensified fiscal scrutiny.
- Negotiators are weighing a narrowed, Bears-specific PILOT instead of the broader ‘megaprojects’ rewrite and remain divided over how much state or local infrastructure money to commit, with requests for about $850 million to ready the Arlington Heights site.
- Indiana has already passed incentive laws that could provide up to about $1 billion to lure the team to Hammond, a competing offer that lawmakers and the Bears cite as leverage in talks.
- If lawmakers miss the Sunday deadline, the vote threshold to pass the deal would rise to three-fifths and likely force a special session, raising political hurdles that Speaker Chris Welch has tried to manage by asking for 60 Democrat votes in the House.