Illinois lawmakers remained hopeful that they could find a way to stop the Chicago Bears from leaving the state for Indiana after they failed to pass a bill before the end of the spring legislative session that would’ve helped the NFL team build a new stadium in Arlington Heights.

Lawmakers worked early into the night Monday morning to pass a new bill in the Illinois Senate 37-17 that would help the Bears build a stadium on a 326-acre property they own on the site of the former Arlington Park Racetrack. But the House adjourned the spring session at about 4:40 a.m. before voting on the bill.

The legislation still needs to be approved by the Illinois House and then signed by Gov. JB Pritzker. Unless there is a special session over the summer, lawmakers won’t return to Springfield until November.

“We need to continue our conversations on the Bears stadium question,” Welch told reporters during a news conference Monday morning. “I know in the House, we need time to review the bill that come over early this morning. We need to know where do the Bears stand. We need to take the time to get it right.”

The lack of action leaves the Bears building a new stadium in the air.

“We will finalize our evaluation of both Arlington Heights and Hammond, and remain on the late spring/early summer timeline that we have previously communicated,” the team said in a statement. “We will provide an update when we have a decision to share.”

Illinois lawmakers seemed on pace to pass a bill in the early morning after a complete change on the final day of the spring legislative session.

The bill the Senate passed Monday would allow municipalities in Cook County with a population of at least 70,000 residents to create their own municipal stadium authority. The franchise, which has previously dedicated $2 billion toward building a new stadium, would build the stadium but turn it over to the stadium authority to lease. It would require the Bears to agree to use the stadium for a term of at least 35 years.

This would allow the Bears not to pay property taxes on a new stadium since it will be a public building. The team would, however, have to pay property taxes on buildings within a potential stadium district. The bill would also permit a stadium authority to issue bonds to finance the construction of a stadium.

It also opens up an avenue, in the eyes of Chicago lawmakers, to keep the Bears in the city. Monday’s bill would theoretically help city officials come up with a plan for a stadium in Chicago, whether that’s on the lakefront next to Soldier Field or somewhere else.

The bill also created a solution for how infrastructure would be paid for surrounding a stadium district, wherever the Bears choose to build within the state.

The stadium authority will be allowed to issue revenue bonds that can be paid back solely using “pledged stadium revenues.” STAR bond district or NOVA district placed within a mile of the stadium could also pay for infrastructure, as well as other stadium district project costs.

Monday’s Senate passage was part of a last-minute effort by lawmakers to help persuade the Bears to stay in Illinois. The state’s spring legislative session ended Sunday night, but the Senate passed the bill in overtime after midnight with a supermajority.

Despite the quick turnaround, Welch didn’t feel comfortable putting the bill up for a vote before the end of the session, given how late it came in the process.

“That’s the legislative process, that’s sausage-making” Welch said. “It came over late, as you said. We didn’t have time to digest it. We didn’t have time to find out what other folks thought about the bill. I need to have some feedback from our members before asking them to vote for it on the floor.”

The bill already faced criticism from one of the mayors who is trying to entice the Bears to build a stadium in their community.

Arlington Heights Mayor Jim Tinaglia threw cold water on the bill even though it hadn’t been passed into law. After years of working on a Bears-backed megaprojects bill, Tinaglia made it clear he thought Illinois lawmakers made a mistake.

“Although we recognize that these discussions are complex and involve many stakeholders, this is clearly a fumble for the state of Illinois,” Tinaglia said in a statement. “My commitment to the residents and businesses of Arlington Heights is unwavering, and we will continue to represent the interests of our community as future opportunities and next steps are considered.”

It was the latest development in what’s been a long legislative process for Illinois lawmakers.

Lawmakers went away from a Bears-backed megaprojects bill on the final day of the spring session. That bill would’ve allowed the Bears and any major company to make a Payment in Lieu of Taxes instead of a regular property tax.

They originally advanced the megaprojects bill out of the House Revenue and Finance Committee at the end of February. The House didn’t pass a revised version of it until late April.

But the bill received heavy skepticism from lawmakers in the Senate for various reasons. Most were concerned about how such a bill would affect property taxes in neighboring communities. Chicago lawmakers were also not interested in providing a tax credit that would allow the Bears to leave the city for the suburbs.

The Illinois Senate has been working through the bill since then, trying to determine how to amend it so that it would garner enough support in the Senate, but also in the House and from the Bears.

Illinois lawmakers have been under heightened pressure to get a deal done that’s earned national attention since December.

That’s when Bears president and CEO Kevin Warren opened up the team’s stadium search to include Northwest Indiana. Indiana lawmakers quickly jumped at the opportunity and passed and signed a bill into law in February to incentivize the Bears to move to Hammond, Indiana, just over the Illinois-Indiana border.

Both the Bears and the NFL have pushed for a quick resolution to the matter as well.

Bears brass and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell initially said at the NFL’s annual meetings during the spring that they’d like to have a decision during the late spring or early summer between the two spots. They reiterated that point and that they’re only considering two locations recently, when Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson made an effort to keep the team on the city’s lakefront.

“This, as I’ve said, would give the Bears what they want. They have said that they can build and will build their own stadium with private finances. They can do that. What they can also do is enter into an agreement with a municipality, with the stadium district, which would make the building publicly owned. As we know, publicly owned buildings don’t pay property taxes. So that is exactly what the Bears have asked for.”

—  Bill Cunningham, Illinois State Senator

The bill would help the Bears finally end a five-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.

The Bears have waited for years to evaluate what their options are for building a new stadium.

They have played in Chicago since 1921, when they first played at Wrigley Field after moving from Decatur, Illinois. The team has played at Soldier Field since 1971, with a one-year stay in Champaign in 2003 during stadium renovations. It has a lease at Soldier Field that lasts until 2033, which can be broken earlier by paying a termination payment.

Now the Bears will need to decide how long they want to wait. Pritzker said there are two bills up for consideration, and it would be up to the legislative leaders to determine whether they wanted to call a special session over the summer.

Pritzker made it clear that he didn’t want to lose the Bears to Indiana. But he also made it clear that he wouldn’t waver on his principles about what he’s willing to negotiate to make that happen.

“I wasn’t willing to give up billions of dollars of taxpayer money in order to give it to a billionaire-owned team,” Pritzker said. “I believe very much that the incentives that we provide for businesses ought to be similar to the incentives we provide to this type of business as much as an emotional connection as many of us have to the Bears and to keeping them in the city of Chicago or the state of Illinois, number one principle is we’re not going to foist this on the taxpayers of the state of Illinois.”