The Bears are formally moving ahead with a planned $5 billion domed stadium and mixed-use development in Hammond, Ind., with the NFL franchise pivoting quickly in the wake of political inaction earlier this week in Illinois.
Team owner George McCaskey and president and CEO Kevin Warren said Friday that the team’s board of directors has voted to advance the Hammond project. The move marked the first time the team has made a definitive statement in a long-running site deliberation between that option and one in Arlington Heights, Ill.
The decision also puts to rest suggestions that had circulated in Illinois political circles in recent months that the Indiana consideration was merely a bluff by the Bears.
“We believe a world-class stadium project in Hammond will transform the region, connecting Northwest Indiana to the South Side of Chicago through the Loop and across neighborhoods and suburbs stretching nothing of the city,” McCaskey and Warren said in a joint statement. “It will bring Chicagoland together and deliver new opportunities to its residents and businesses.”
An exact stadium site within Hammond is still “to be selected.”
