Chicago Mayor Pushing for Rejected Downtown Bears Stadium Site

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson is prepping a renewed push for the Bears to pursue a new stadium at the site of the former Michael Reese Hospital, NFL sources said, in an effort that would diverge sharply from the team’s current, two-site deliberation.

While the mayor is looking to keep the Bears in the city, and has been for months, the team remains focused on two suburban options: one on team-owned land in Arlington Heights, Ill., and a separate proposal in Hammond, Ind., that already has legislative approval in that state. 

The latest political salvo developing in Chicago, however, shows the divide that persists in Illinois as the Bears’ stadium decision could arrive in a matter of weeks. Since Indiana’s approval of a stadium bill in late February, the Illinois legislature has been in recess, with the House resuming Tuesday and the Senate next week, but neither chamber has coalesced fully around advancing a stadium bill.

Johnson previously backed a lakefront stadium proposal in downtown Chicago, near the team’s current home of Soldier Field. That effort, however, ran into fierce community opposition to the Bears’ prior lakefront proposal—including from many of the same activists that previously thwarted a museum plan for the same area from famed filmmaker George Lucas. 

The Reese site, which was formerly a hospital and is in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood, has been extensively reviewed, including by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell in January—and subsequently rejected. The area has already been deemed not viable by the team and the league, in part due to its narrow layout and active rail lines running through it. 

Political Dynamics

The Bears did not comment on the latest news, but have been consistent that Arlington Heights is the only viable site in Illinois.

“We’ve been working on our stadium and feel very strongly that we are making progress,” Bears president Kevin Warren said last week at the NFL annual meeting in Phoenix. “We are in an excellent position. The target is to make sure that we have a decision made by … late spring, early summer.”

That timetable lines up with the May 31 end of the Illinois General Assembly’s spring session.

The Arlington Heights effort has been complicated by the team’s desire to negotiate its own property tax rates, which will in turn affect its borrowing for the project. That property tax issue is part of the legislative effort underway in Illinois. 

Despite all of that, some Chicago officials, including Mayor Johnson, have not let go of the idea of the Bears staying in the city.

Indiana advocates, meanwhile, are more in a wait-and-see mode and believe that ongoing political division in Illinois could be to their benefit. 

The office of Mayor Johnson did not respond to requests for comment.