Gov. J.B. Pritzker said Thursday that it’s up to Mayor Lori Lightfoot and leaders in northwest suburban Arlington Heights to determine whether local taxpayers should help pay to build a new stadium for the Chicago Bears.
A day after the Bears announced their $197.2 million purchase agreement for Arlington International Racecourse, Pritzker did not unequivocally rule out state subsidies for a new stadium, but said no one from the football team had approached him.
Whether it’s appropriate for a city to ask local taxpayers to help foot the bill is “not something I would decide for a city,” Pritzker said Thursday at an unrelated event in Little Village.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker speaks to media at the Thompson Center in Chicago on Aug. 26, 2021. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune)
While saying he’d like to see the team stay in Chicago, he said, “Cities are going to have to make their own decisions about what they’ll do.”
“I’ve been watching them at Soldier Field for an awfully long time, and … there’s something about having them in the city and nearby that’s attractive to me and something I care about,” Pritzker said. “There’s a tradition, I think, that we all feel, many of us, about the city of Chicago.
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“Having said that, this is a private enterprise engaging with city government to decide what’s best for them.”
Pritzker repeated that the state is not involved at this point.
“I can just tell you that at the state level, we’re focused on balancing the budget and maintaining our positive course,” he said.
Pritzker noted the upgrades the state received from two Wall Street credit ratings agencies this summer on the strength of the state spending plan for the budget year that began July 1 and the influx of coronavirus relief money from Washington.
Even if Pritzker were on board with providing state help for a new Bears stadium, getting a deal for taxpayer support through the legislature would be a tough sell.
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A spokesperson for House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch of Hillside said the possibility of state support for a new Bears stadium “has not been discussed.”
“It’s not a priority for us at this time,” spokesperson Jaclyn Driscoll said.
Senate President Don Harmon of Oak Park, through a spokesperson, declined to comment.
Many rank-and-file lawmakers, meanwhile, have been outspoken in their opposition to the state opening its checkbook to help the Bears.
Democratic state Reps. Mike Zalewski of Riverside and Kam Buckner of Chicago, whose district is home to Soldier Field, filed a resolution Thursday that would urge the General Assembly “to take all necessary steps to ensure that no state or local taxpayer money is used in the construction of new professional sport stadiums.”
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Zalewski, who chairs the House Revenue and Finance Committee, said it “concerns me that we’re already onto building a new stadium for the Bears when there’s open questions as to whether taxpayers still owe money on Soldier Field.”
“My colleagues and I have spent several years righting the financial ship of the state by making sound decisions and Illinois’ fiscal condition is in the best shape it’s been since the construction of the new Soldier Field started,” he said. “This is no time to turn back.”
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While the nonbinding resolution is directed at the Bears, it makes mention of a publicly financed stadium debacle in Zalewski’s district: SeatGeek Stadium in Bridgeview.
After the town went heavily into debt to build a home for the Chicago Fire, the soccer team bolted for Soldier Field, reaching an agreement to pay $65.5 million to break its lease with the village.
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Buckner said Wednesday that he in part blames the NFL for creating “a situation that I think is both untenable and unrealistic where you need a new stadium to be able to compete.”
State involvement in stadium building has precedent in Illinois.
When White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf threatened to move the team to Florida in the 1980s, the state created the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority to finance the construction of what’s now Guaranteed Rate Field, an endeavor that has been of questionable value to taxpayers.
The state entity also issued bonds to help pay for the $690 million Soldier Field renovation, but the payments on the city’s $432 million portion of bill are covered mainly by city hotel tax revenue. When those revenues fall short, however, city taxpayers are on the hook.
Later Thursday, at a Senate subcommittee hearing on the future of horse racing in Illinois, the head of a rival bidding group for Arlington Park told lawmakers he’s made overtures to the Bears in hopes of convincing the team to preserve the track and racing at the site.
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Roy Arnold, CEO of Endeavor Properties and former president of Arlington International Racecourse, told the panel he was hoping for “political support to see if we can work with the Bears to maintain Arlington as a world-class thoroughbred racetrack.”
“There is absolutely no reason why you can’t have a world-class stadium for the Bears, maintain Arlington Park racetrack as one of the premier racetracks and have a diversified entertainment district, which is what we were proposing, on those same 326 acres,” Arnold said.
But Sen. Bill Cunningham of Chicago, the Senate Democrats’ point person on gambling issues, said there is one obvious reason: The current owner, Churchill Downs, is also the majority owner of nearby Rivers Casino in Des Plaines and doesn’t want the competition.
“There’s likely no future for gaming, whether it’s horse racing or anything else, at the Arlington Park site,” Cunningham said.
dpetrella@chicagotribune.com
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