Village of Arlington Heights and Taxing Districts Agree to Tax Bill with Bears
As the Chicago Bear’s disappointing 2025 season ended on Sunday, the Chicago Bears were at least successful in their pursuit of a property tax deal with Arlington Heights and local taxing districts. During the middle of December, 2024, the Arlington Heights Village Board voted 8-0 to seal a deal to set the Chicago Bears’ real estate taxes at $3.6 million per year for the former Arlington International Racecourse. The three local school districts then approved this agreement which would set the assessed value of the Bears’ land at $125 million which is the same assessment as agreed upon by the Cook County Board of Review. Since the team demolished the grandstands and other building improvements, the vacant site would be assessed at only 10% of the property’s market value which would result in an annual projected tax of about $3.6 million per year. This is a significant reduction from the current $8.9 million the Bears are paying in property taxes on the site this past year.
The Bears purchased this 326-acre site in early 2023 for $197 million and announced plans to build a $2 billion enclosed stadium there as part of a $5 billion development which would include housing, entertainment, parks and a sports hall of fame. However, this stated intention by Bears’ President and CEO Kevin Warren cooled down with the real estate tax uncertainty that the Bears would have to pay for the Arlington Heights location in the years preceding to the construction and ultimately, the use of the new facility. In contrast, the Bears shifted their public focus to a proposed new publicly owned lakefront stadium to replace the team’s current home at Soldier Field, something which will not carry any negative property tax implications during the time it takes to prepare and ultimately occupy an alternative stadium site in Chicago. Due to opposition from state politicians such as the Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, this proposal has not progressed.
The main difference of the Arlington Heights site and the Chicago proposals are that the team would build and own the stadium with its own money and pay taxes on the land and building improvements, unlike the publicly owned Chicago lakefront proposal.
Arlington Heights’ Mayor Tom Hayes said that this tax deal is a significant advancement of the planned stadium in his town. There are guardrails for Arlington Heights which allows for the Bears to pay the costs of any new students that might come from new housing at the site which would be years away from completion. Village officials may consider creating a tax increment financing district (TIF) to freeze future property taxes on the site and use any increase to fund infrastructure and other improvements. The agreement also calls for all of the parties involved to lobby Illinois state lawmakers to create a payment in lieu of tax or PILOT which would be based on a local agreement which could set future tax levels for 23 to 40 years.
Therefore, even though the Bear’s have had difficulty winning on the field over the final three months of their season, the Bear’s off-the-field progress on a new stadium project seems to be progressing and is in the “redzone”. Now, everyone will have to wait and see if this Arlington Heights stadium deal will proceed to the “end zone” in 2025 so that Bear’s CEO and President Warren’s public statement that shovels will start being in the ground in 2025 comes to fruition.
