A legislative Hail Mary in Illinois ran out of time early Monday as the state House of Representatives did not take up a revised structure for a $5 billion Bears stadium project.
After a frenetic all-night legislative session Sunday night, running into the pre-dawn hours of Monday morning, the state Senate approved at 4:40 a.m. ET a revised stadium structure that would help fund a Bears stadium, but about an hour later, the House of Representatives adjourned without taking up the bill.
The entirely new bill, part of a marathon session to close the state legislature’s spring session, was furiously developed and involved allowing certain municipalities in Cook County to set up their own stadium authorities.
A chosen locale for a stadium would then own a stadium that the Bears would fund privately, but the NFL team would not pay property taxes, in turn giving it the tax certainty it has coveted throughout this long and winding political process. The Bears, however, would pay property taxes on a planned mixed-use development surrounding the stadium.
That bill arrived after a “megaprojects” bill previously approved by the Illinois House of Representatives fizzled in the state Senate due to numerous political complications there.
