Hoosier State lawmakers pass bill seeking to lure Chicago Bears to Northwest Indiana
A bill designed to lure the Chicago Bears to Northwest Indiana is heading to Indiana Gov. Mike Braun's desk.
Indiana House Bill 1292 creates a professional sports development commission, which would develop a plan and recommendations for attracting a professional sports franchise to Northwest Indiana.
The sponsor of the bill said it was drafted with the Bears in mind, but the region would take any pro sports team.
The Bears have been talking about a move from their home of more than 50 years at Soldier Field since 2021.
The Bears bought the site of the old Arlington International Racecourse for $197 million in February of 2023, and had the grandstand and other structures on the site demolished.
For some time, it seemed as if a new Bears stadium in Arlington Heights was all but a done deal. When he first signed on in January 2023, Warren said the Bears' sole focus for a new stadium was in Arlington Heights.
But months later, the team put the Arlington Heights plan on the back burner in favor of building their new stadium along the Chicago lakefront.
In April 2024, the Bears announced a $4.7 billion plan for a new domed lakefront stadium complex in Chicago, including added green space and other amenities on the Museum Campus and their current home at Soldier Field just to the north of the proposed new stadium.
The plan called for $900 million in public financing in upfront costs and another $1.5 billion in taxpayer funds for infrastructure improvements around the stadium.
But Arlington Heights later came back into the picture as a possible stadium site. The Bears reached a tentative deal over property taxes in November 2024, and the village board approved an agreement between the Bears and nearby school districts the following month.
Bears President Kevin Warren this month said the franchise is now focused on both Arlington Heights and the lakefront — in a shift from recent discussions.
The prospect of the Bears moving to Northwest Indiana is not new either. In 1995, with the Bears' lease on Soldier Field set to expire in four years, the team threw out a plan for a $482 million new stadium and entertainment complex in Gary, Indiana called Planet Park.
As reported by the Associated Press at the time, the complex on the southern shore of Lake Michigan would have included a three-tiered stadium with 9,000 club seats and 138 skyboxes, surrounded by a midway-entertainment concourse, a Bears hall of fame, and parking for 25,000 cars.
Ultimately, the Gary plan fell apart. Lake County, Indiana Council members refused to back the 0.5 percent income tax to fund the new stadium. The Bears ended up staying at Soldier Field, which underwent a massive renovation between 2001 and 2003.
Meanwhile, if an NFL team does come to Northwest Indiana, it won't the first. The Hammond Pros were founded in 1917, became a charter member team of the National Football League in 1920, and folded in 1926. The Pros were a traveling team — they didn't have a home stadium in Hammond — but they were founded by Hammond businessmen.
Fritz Pollard, the first Black head coach in the NFL, coached and played for Hammond during the 1925 season. In 1919, before the National Football League was founded, future Chicago Bears founder and owner George S. Halas also played for the Pros.
