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Originally Posted by twister244
Am I the only pissed about the State House passing a bill that essentially gives the Bears a property tax handout for leaving the city to go the AH? Or is there a balance between the special payment they need to make that offsets the taxes they would otherwise gain?
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Well, the Bears pay zero property taxes at Soldier Field since it's publicly-owned. And if they go to Indiana, they will also pay no property taxes in Illinois.
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Originally Posted by galleyfox
First of all, I don't think the Bears are too happy with this bill. No infrastructure or construction funding. Also, any residential construction on a megaproject outside Chicago voids the entire deal. So, uh, the entire proposed Arlington mixed use stadium neighborhood doesn't qualify as a megaproject.
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Well, the Bears aren't gonna get everything they want. From Pritzker's standpoint, he wants the Bears to be grumbling about their "bum deal" or it looks like he caved. I think the state does have a lot of leverage here. It's clear that all things equal, the team prefers AH over Hammond since it's a superior location and they already own the land. Now the team needs to crunch the numbers again and see if they can live with the terms that Illinois is offering.
As for the resi provision - this makes sense. For most suburban areas, the school system is the biggest user of property tax funding. If the state allowed residential developments to qualify as megaprojects, then any developer putting up a big subdivision could qualify at the $100M tier and they could wriggle out of property tax payments that largely fund the schools even as they add hundreds of new students. That drama is playing out right now for the Ivanhoe development in Mundelein. So either the Bears can draw some creative boundaries and accept paying full property taxes on residential/mixed-use parcels, or they can just build a shitty Rosemont-style village that is all dining/entertainment and retail.
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The only party that got everything they wanted out of the bill was... Bob Dunn for One Central. And Ishbia, I suppose, is looking at train yards seeing if he could qualify for the same benefit.
The whole thing is just weird.
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I mean, this is clearly Pritzker (and Kam Buckner) trying to make this into a broader state policy for incentives so they don't need to have these one-off negotiations with every sports team and developer looking for a handout. Those have been major distractions in Springfield the past few years.
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