Illinois lawmakers came one step closer to passing a bill aimed at keeping the Chicago Bears from moving to Indiana on Wednesday.

The Illinois House Revenue and Finance Committee advanced legislation by a 15-5 vote that sends a Bears-backed megaproject legislation to the House floor. It will now move on to a full House floor vote, which could come as early as Wednesday evening.

The bill is what the Bears say is required for them to build a stadium in Arlington Heights. It will allow the team to negotiate a payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) agreement with local governments. Even with the approval in the House, the legislation would need to pass the Senate, which returns to Springfield on April 28, and earn Gov. JB Pritzker’s approval.

Lawmakers advanced the bill that had originally been approved at the end of February. But lawmakers had worked over the past few months to develop an agreement that would get enough votes to pass the legislation.

The biggest change in the amended legislation would allocate 50% of the receipts from the PILOT to property tax relief. Sixty percent of that amount would go to property tax rebates for residential homeowners in those taxing districts where a megaproject will be built. The rest would be deposited into the state’s existing property tax relief fund.

The newer version of the legislation also aimed at helping those who were worried about a higher tax burden on surrounding taxpayers. It will get rid of language that would count megaprojects at full market value while calculating local government borrowing limits and property tax cap formulas.

Other changes were aimed at earning votes from both Chicago and downstate lawmakers.

The bill would expand the tiers of projects aiming to redevelop rail yards, possibly helping win votes in Chicago. A couple of projects, including the One Central transit development near Soldier Field and the 14th Street railyard that billionaire Justin Ishbia reportedly wants for a redevelopment that might feature a future White Sox stadium, have been in the works in recent months.

There will also be another portion that would provide financial assistance toward the expansion of Springfield’s downtown convention center and an adjacent hotel.

Illinois lawmakers have been under pressure to get a deal done since December, when Bears president and CEO Kevin Warren opened up the team’s stadium search to include Northwest Indiana. Indiana lawmakers passed and signed a bill into law in February to incentivize the Bears to move to Hammond just over the Illinois-Indiana border.

Both the Bears and the NFL have pushed for a quick resolution to the matter as well. Both Bears brass and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell recently said that they’d like to have a decision during the late spring or early summer.

The bill would help the Bears end a six-year search that started in 2021 when the team agreed to purchase the Arlington Heights property on the site of the former Arlington Park racecourse. There have been twists and turns throughout the process, including pivots back to Chicago before going back to Arlington Heights and now Northwest Indiana.