Stadiums
Chicago Bears Advance Planned Move to Indiana for New Football Stadium
NFL team intends to build estimated $5B facility and pay for surrounding mixed-used development across state line
Chicago Bears are advancing plans to move team football stadium to Indiana, leaving Soldier Field, where it has played since the 1970s.
In a move that could end a century of local games, the National Football League’s Chicago Bears are moving forward with plans to build a new stadium across the state line in Indiana.
The team announced in a website post June 5 that its board of directors voted to move forward with its northwest Indiana stadium development project—with the exact site to be determined, but speculated to be Hammond, Ind..
“We believe a world-class stadium project in Hammond will transform the region, connecting Northwest Indiana to the South Side of Chicago through the Loop and across neighborhoods and suburbs stretching north of the city,” the Bears statement reads. “It will bring Chicagoland together and deliver new opportunities to its residents and businesses."
The Bears announced earlier this month that the team was no longer considering Chicago's Soldier Field for a new stadium, which left northwest suburban Arlington Heights, Ill., and Hammond, Ind., as the other possible options.
The decision to favor a move to Indiana follows the Illinois General Assembly failure to pass a bill geared to keeping the franchise in Arlington Heights during its spring session that ended on May 31. The bill would have allowed the Bears, along with other developers of projects in the $100-million to $500-million range, to negotiate property tax levels with local municipalities, rather than paying an annual rate based on the property's assessed value.
Reflecting concerns about the bill, Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas said on the treasurer's website that "megaproject property tax savings could total billions of dollars—money that would otherwise go to fund schools and other local governments."
The Bears' organization has said it might reconsider staying in Illinois if the state passes a version of the megaprojects tax bill. Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) released a statement saying that legislators had been working in "good faith" to keep the team in the state.
But Indiana lawmakers are offering the Bears a public-private partnership to build an enclosed stadium, possibly on a site near Wolf Lake. In February, state Gov. Mike Braun (R) signed into law a bill that would create the Northwest Indiana Stadium Authority to oversee land acquisition, financing and lease agreements. The stadium would be funded by a 12% ticket tax, innkeepers' tax and regional food and beverage taxes. The Bears would be responsible for construction debt while paying zero property taxes on the stadium.
Like the Arlington Heights site, the Indiana site is planned to cost in the $5-billion range and would achieve a Bears' goal of allowing for year-round use of the facility for events such as concerts and hosting a Super Bowl.
In April 2024, the Bears had put forward a plan to build a $4.6-billion domed stadium on property in Chicago's Museum Campus district overlooking Lake Michigan. Insisting at that time it no longer had plans to build a stadium in the suburbs, the team said it would demolish Soldier Field, last reconstructed in 2003, and replace it with gardens and athletic fields. That plan never gained traction.
No design concept or renderings are yet available for a possible Indiana stadium.
