Chicago is no longer part of the conversation to build the domed stadium needed to keep the Bears in Illinois and stave off a move to Indiana.
But the Chicago Park District wants a piece of the action — if the team scores the state help it needs to build a dome in Arlington Heights.
With or without the Bears, the Chicago Park District wants $630 million to renovate and refresh Soldier Field, and ease the transportation bottleneck that makes it difficult to get in and out of the Museum Campus.
Roughly $500 million would be spent on long-sought infrastructure improvements. The remaining $130 million would be used for replacement of stadium seats, an upgrade of Soldier Field’s concessions, restrooms, locker rooms, video and sound systems, and an overhaul of luxury skyboxes and club level lounges.
The new revamp would also include structural, mechanical, electrical, plumbing and exterior improvements, even as Chicago taxpayers remain saddled with $467 million in outstanding debt linked to the 2001 renovation of Soldier Field.
The wish list of improvements was devised by Legends Global, a company that manages nearly a dozen NFL stadiums and is now leading the development of Alicante Park, a new sports and entertainment complex being built outside the Valencia, Spain.
The overhaul would include fencing and façade work, as well as unspecified improvements to the parking lots surrounding Soldier Field.
The transportation improvements are the same as those floated by Mayor Brandon Johnson when he teamed up with Bears President Kevin Warren on a plan to build a domed lakefront stadium on a parking lot adjacent to Soldier Field.
A rendering of a proposed new stadium for the Chicago Bears on the lakefront.
A rendering of a new stadium that was once proposed for the Bears on the lakefront.
Provided/Chicago Bears
That plan went nowhere in Springfield, prompting the Bears to shift their focus back to the Arlington International Racecourse site that the team purchased for $197.2 million and has already cleared for development.
The Bears are trying to work out an agreement with the Illinois General Assembly on a so-called “mega-projects” bill that would save the team hundreds of millions of dollars by freezing property taxes and allowing the team to negotiate reduced “payments in lieu of property taxes” with suburban school districts.
The deal would also include up to $700 million in road, sewer and utility work needed to pave the way for construction of a domed stadium on the Arlington Heights site.
The Park District’s 11th hour play for a piece of stadium funding throws a potential monkey wrench into Bears stadium negotiations.
The Bears stadium bill can’t pass without substantial support from the General Assembly’s Chicago lawmakers. If Chicago legislators demand a Soldier Field refresh in exchange for their votes, the heat would be on to find the money to appease Chicago.
‘We want them to stay’
Chicago Park District Superintendent Carlos Ramirez-Rosa said the $500 million needed to ease the notorious transportation bottleneck around Soldier Field could come from the “motor fuel tax lock box money,” the state’s road fund that has $3.5 billion that “needs to be spent down.”
The $130 million for a Soldier Field revamp could come, in part, from the penalty the Bears would pay if they terminate their lease, or if the Park District pursues the more aggressive legal theory that the Bears owe a 150% of the annual rent penalty from the moment they started looking for a new stadium.
“We believe the Bears belong here. We want them to stay in Chicago, but if that ship is sailed or sailing, then we’re prepared to plan for the future of Soldier Field to maintain it as a viable asset for large concerts, for large international and national sporting events that drives the local tourism economy, that puts heads in beds downtown and generates revenue for the city of Chicago, for the Park District,” Ramirez-Rosa said.
Renderings of the proposed Chicago Bears stadium in Arlington Heights.
Renderings of the proposed Chicago Bears stadium in Arlington Heights.
Provided by Manica Architecture
Ramirez-Rosa stressed that Soldier Field is “in great shape,” and remains the “largest non-tax revenue source” for the Chicago Park District — with $62.9 million in projected gross revenue that reduces pressure to raise property taxes and supports Park District programs citywide.
Last year alone, Soldier Field played host to thirteen concert nights, including five straight over Labor Day weekend. Beyonce concerts in May 2025 generated $85 million in hotel revenue and 98.5% occupancy in downtown hotels.
Those numbers are all the more reason to “continue to invest” in Chicago’s lakefront stadium, in part by making it “easier to get in and out” of Soldier Field, Ramirez-Rosa said.
“The plan that the Bears unveiled with the mayor would have fixed a lot of those issues,” Ramirez-Rosa said. “It was a great plan that would have benefited the South Loop. It would have benefited the museum campus. It would have made it easier for people to get in and out of the museum campus and Soldier Field. Those issues don’t go away if the Bears go to Arlington Heights or Indiana.”
Senior mayoral adviser Jason Lee said the Johnson administration’s “number one focus is trying to make sure that Chicago remains in the mix to keep the Bears.”
“The partnership between the Park District and the Bears has been good for a number of reasons. We’d like to maintain it through some mechanism, and that’s what they’re having conversations in Springfield about,” Lee said. “This [Soldier Field Hail Mary] is just about saying, `We’re not going to lay down and die if it goes the other way.’ But our focus is preserving what we have.”
Springfield waits for details
Sources close to the Bears’ Springfield negotiations said talks were heading in a positive direction despite the frustration caused by the team’s Hammond announcement last week. A committee hearing was set for Thursday on the bill the Bears are seeking that would allow them negotiate payments in lieu of taxes (PILOT) to local taxing bodies, resulting in lower property tax liabilities.
But getting close to a deal behind closed doors is a long way away from locking up 60 votes in the Illinois House and 30 in the Senate, where Chicago Democrats across the Capitol remain loath to pave the Bears’ way out of town.
Some city legislators are still holding out hope the Bears will reconsider the old Michael Reese Hospital site that the team has dismissed as too narrow, but most acknowledge it’s down to Arlington Heights or Indiana. One legislator noted that Johnson has been “a complete nonentity” in stadium negotiations since the mayor’s ill-fated boosterism of the Bears proposal for a lakefront stadium.
Gov. JB Pritzker’s office wasn’t briefed on the park district funding plan. While he was optimistic about talks, Pritzker acknowledged “I really don’t know whether they will choose to move out of the state.”
“We continue to have really positive discussions with the Chicago Bears, and I think you’re going to see progress over time here,” Pritzker said Tuesday. “I’m a Chicago Bears fan, believe very much that they ought to be based in Illinois, and I’m going to do everything I can without harming the taxpayers of the state of Illinois in the process of making sure that we can do everything we can to keep them in the state.”
State Sen. Bill Cunningham, a South Side Democrat and a key negotiator in Bears talks, said he had not heard from park district officials about the funding proposal and was “unaware of anyone who has.” Spokespeople for House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch and Senate President Don Harmon said they also hadn’t reviewed the ideas.
State Sen. Robert Peters, whose district includes Soldier Field, said that without being briefed on the potential upgrades, he’d be on board with doing “whatever we need to do to make sure it remains one of the best concert venues in the country.”
“It’s a top-tier stadium for the likes of Beyonce and Taylor Swift. If you can fill it for eight to 10 more concerts, that’ll easily make up for the potential loss of Bears revenue,” Peters said. “There’s a fallacy that sports stadiums are this huge economic driver. The Bears are not that great of a driver of revenue for Soldier Field. They make a massive blackout period and take all the revenue from it.”
While Peters isn’t completely resigned to the Bears leaving the city, “we do have to have a conversation about what happens when the Bears convince someone to give them a handout,” he said.
“Indiana is willing to tax working-class people to pay for billionaires’ new stadium, and the [Arlington Heights] PILOT bill seems like it’s moving, so we’re now at a point where we have to think realistically about options on what is next,” Peters said. “Infrastructure support is understandable, but I personally am never going to support tax giveaways to build a new stadium.”
Hoosier lawmakers are poised to pass legislation this week creating a new stadium finance authority and a slew of new taxes to pump upwards of $1 billion into a new stadium, along with $2 billion from the Bears.
Under the legislation that passed the Indiana House on Tuesday, the Bears would be able to buy it for a buck once 40-year bonds are paid off, backed by taxes on admissions, hotel stays, and food and beverage costs within a stadium district. In the meantime, the Bears would sign a 35-year lease that would allow the team to retain all revenues generated by the stadium.