Gov. JB Pritzker criticized Mayor Brandon Johnson on Bears stadium: "I know the mayor has no plan"

Gov. JB Pritzker minced no words on Monday about Mayor Brandon Johnson, sending the clearest message yet the mayor isn't helping efforts to keep the Chicago Bears in Illinois.

While Pritzker and state lawmakers have been negotiating on legislation to provide the Bears with property tax breaks for a stadium in Arlington Heights, Johnson has continued to push to keep the Bears in Chicago.

However, both the team and the Pritzker administration have signaled the only viable options for the team to build a new stadium are either Arlington Heights or Hammond, Indiana.

Johnson clearly doesn't want to lose the Bears – it would be bad for his image – but if Illinois legislators can't agree on a so-called "megaprojects bill" by the end of the spring session in Springfield on May 31, Indiana will have the clear upper hand in luring the Bears across state lines.

Pritzker on Monday said he expects state lawmakers to approve a deal to help the Bears build a new stadium in Arlington Heights before the end of the spring legislative session, and slammed Johnson for having "no plan" to keep the Bears in Chicago.

"We are three years in now, and he still has no plan. So, the Bears have said publicly, and I think they said so last Friday again, that they have now only two options, and that's the state of Indiana or Arlington Heights," Pritzker said.

But with less than two weeks until the end of the spring legislative session in Springfield, Johnson still sees Chicago as a realistic option for the Bears.

"We did two years ago. It's still the best plan. In fact, have you seen Arlington Heights' plan?" Johnson said last week. "There's only one plan right now, and that's the plan to keep the Bears in the city of Chicago."

Johnson was referring to the Bears' 2024 announcement of a $4.7 billion plan for a new domed lakefront stadium complex. The plan would ask taxpayers to kick in half of the costs of the overall project; which includes a $3.2 billion domed stadium and $1.5 billion in infrastructure improvements on the Museum Campus, where Soldier Field is located.

However, Pritzker and state lawmakers have scoffed at plans to help directly finance a Bears stadium, and instead have focused on negotiating possible property tax breaks for the Arlington Heights stadium plan, and support for infrastructure costs such as roads and utilities that would be needed for the project.

The Bears have moved so far away from that lakefront stadium plan, it's barely mentioned on their stadium website anymore. 

When Johnson talks about Arlington Heights not having a plan, he's right, at least partly.

In 2022, the Arlington Heights Village Board approved a zoning change for the former Arlington International Racecourse site that the Bears had purchased to allow for a sports betting facility there if it's part of a professional sports stadium.

Sources said it's a key building block for a stadium deal, but public-facing plans are on hold until the critical Springfield vote.

"The mayor has no plan. He has come up with no plan at all about how the Bears would end up in the city of Chicago. So that's problematic," Pritzker said.

Retired University of Illinois Chicago political science professor Dick Simpson, a former Chicago alderman, said Johnson's continued push to keep the Bears in Chicago is nonetheless politically savvy to show he fought to stop the team from moving away.

"He has to try and show that he did have a plan, and that it was going to be good for Chicago, and somehow outside forces prevented it from happening," Simpson said. "I think the mayor actually believes in his plan, that he actually thinks it's a good idea, and he can't understand why everybody else isn't buying it."

However, Simpson said the governor is "basically right" that Johnson is coming late to the game in Springfield and has no viable plan to keep the Bears in Chicago.

"I can understand the frustrations on both sides. They both have difficult jobs," he said. "It'll be seen as a great loss for the mayor if the Bears move either to Arlington Heights, or even worse if they move to Hammond, Indiana."

In a statement, a spokesperson for the mayor said, "The City's proposal remains the only plan centered on public ownership alongside a funding mechanism that does not burden property taxpayers while keeping the Bears in Chicago."