‘We’re getting near the end’: Clock ticking for a Bears stadium deal this weekend in Springfield

With two days to go in the Illinois General Assembly’s spring session, it’s the proverbial two-minute warning for property tax break legislation long-sought by the Bears to build a new stadium in Arlington Heights.

Will a deal get done by the time the legislative clock expires Sunday night?

“I’m hopeful that it will,” said Arlington Heights Democratic state Sen. Mark Walker, an early supporter and sponsor of the so-called megaproject legislation. “We established our positions that we want to make a deal reasonable for the Bears and not cost the taxpayers too much money.”

Legislators were still negotiating changes to the bill behind closed doors Friday, before an amendment is filed and brought to a Senate committee for discussion and a vote. Then the measure would go to the full Senate floor, and if approved, back to the House for a concurrence vote.

The game clock is ticking. Not only is the Bears bill on the docket, but the legislature must pass a budget by the constitutionally mandated May 31 deadline.

Still, a hurry-up offense at the end of session is commonplace at the state Capitol.

“We’re getting near the end, but it could be done,” Walker said.

The House approved a 376-page version of the megaproject bill — which would allow the team to negotiate tax payments directly with local governments over some four decades — by a 78-32 tally. But it was clear almost immediately after that April 22 vote that changes would be needed to make the final version palatable to the Bears, Gov. JB Pritzker, and legislators in the Senate.

The bill has run into complications in that chamber, where supermajority Democrats have expressed “a whole range of opinions,” Walker confirmed, from Chicago legislators still reluctant to have the Bears leave the city, to progressives unwilling to subsidize an NFL franchise valued at $8.9 billion.

“There are people that have questions about Chicago especially, and are very emotional about that, and should be,” Walker said. “And then there are others that basically talk about the concept of providing support for billionaire companies. Some people just have a basic ideological problem with that.”

There has been talk in recent days of paring the bill down — from a statewide economic development tool that could benefit any project worth more than $100 million, to one that just focuses on the Bears’ proposed $5 billion redevelopment of the former Arlington Park racetrack.

For nearly four years, Pritzker and the Bears have touted the legislation as something that could support business attraction and retention across the state.

But to get the votes as time is winding down — potentially, to keep the Bears in Illinois amid a competing offer for a new public stadium in Hammond, Indiana — legislators may kick the can down the road on other proposed incentives outlined in the massive bill. That includes expansion of the state’s existing STAR bond program to Chicago and other places downstate, help for long-stalled projects in downtown Springfield, and a new RREDY tool to spur redevelopment of underused rail yards.

“We may do some things in here, for instance, especially help (for) the city of Chicago because of the special situation that they’re leaving a stadium in the city of Chicago. Those kinds of things would not apply elsewhere in the state,” Walker said.

At the same time, a slimmer bill solely about the Bears could present other complications.

“I’ve always thought it was simpler to keep them separate,” Walker said. “But I honestly don’t know which way we’re going to go.”