The Chicago Bears made major strides on the field in 2025. They accomplished plenty of firsts during an unforgettable season under head coach Ben Johnson.

Chicago returned to the playoffs for the first time since 2020, won its first NFC North title since 2018 and earned its first playoff win in 15 years. It happened in dramatic fashion too. The Bears came back to seven games they trailed with two minutes left in the game.

The franchise didn’t enjoy the same success in their search for a new stadium in 2025.

Team president and CEO Kevin Warren said the Bears hoped to break ground on a new stadium in 2025. But as the calendar year ended, the Bears announced that they were widening their search to include Northwest Indiana. Over the first weeks of 2026, Indiana quickly worked on legislation to attract the Bears while Illinois tries to stop the NFL’s charter franchise from leaving the state.

It’s the the latest twist and turn in a process that’s seen plenty of them over six years. But it appears that the Bears could be closing in on making a decision in the coming weeks or months.

Here’s a look back at how we got here.

2021

The search for a new stadium started in 2021 when the Bears faced an unexpected opportunity.

Churchill Downs announced in February that it had placed the Arlington International Racecourse and its 326-acre property in Arlington Heights up for sale. The Bears showed interest and submitted a bid by the June deadline to purchase the property as they opened the opportunity to leave not only Soldier Field, where it had played since 1971, but Chicago itself.

“It’s our obligation to explore every possible option to ensure we’re doing what’s best for our organization and its future,” then-team president and CEO Ted Phillips said at the time. “If selected, this step allows us to further evaluate the property and its potential.”

In September, Churchill Downs announced that it had reached an agreement for the Bears to buy the property. The two parties had signed a Purchase and Sale Agreement.

Then-Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot remained adamant at the time that her staff would continue to try to keep the franchise in the city. Those comments came after she dismissed the team’s interest in the property as a negotiating tactic earlier in the year.

2022

The Bears spent much of the first half of 2022 working on redevelopment plans for the Arlington Heights site to present to the community later in the year as the franchise and Churchill Downs continued to progress toward finalizing the sale of the property.

In July, Lightfoot’s office released renderings of what a renovated Soldier Field would look like with a dome in an attempt to keep the team in Chicago. Lightfoot released three potential plans for the iconic stadium on the lakefront. She estimated that putting a roof on the stadium likely would’ve cost $1 billion to $2 billion.

The Bears released their own renderings for what the Arlington Heights campus could look like in September ahead of a public meeting to go over their plan for the site.

The renderings showed a campus that the team said would include a multi-purpose entertainment, commercial/retail, housing district, restaurants, office space, a hotel, fitness center, parks and open spaces. The Bears presented the campus as an area that could host events like the Super Bowl, Final Four and College Football Playoff and could serve the surrounding communities with events throughout the year.

Although the Bears said they didn’t want public funding for the stadium’s construction, they did want support for other parts of the project. They estimated that the whole project would cost $5 billion.

“Given the broad, long-term public benefits of this project, we look forward to partnering with the various governmental bodies to secure additional funding and assistance needed to support the feasibility of the remainder of the development,” the team said at the time.

2023

The franchise started 2023 by officially purchasing the Arlington Heights property in February for $197.2 million as the project seemed to progress quickly. It submitted paperwork to tear down Arlington Park’s grandstand in May and did so a month later.

But at the same time, the Bears widened their search for a stadium location despite the purchase.

Warren took over as the team’s president earlier in the year and partly earned the role because of his work in helping the Minnesota Vikings build U.S. Bank Stadium. The Arlington Heights project stalled as the team and Arlington Heights-based schools struggled with a property tax dispute.

Other suburbs like Naperville reached out to Warren as a possible site for a new stadium.

“We will continue the ongoing demolition activity and work toward a path forward in Arlington Heights, but it is no longer our singular focus,” the Bears said at the time. “It is our responsibility to listen to other municipalities in Chicagoland about potential locations that can deliver on this transformational opportunity for our fans, our club and the state of Illinois.”

2024

Warren and the Bears changed the trajectory of their stadium search in 2024 when they shifted their focus back to Chicago’s lakefront.

The Bears held a press conference to announce its new stadium plan near Soldier Field in April, a day before the selected quarterback Caleb Williams with the No. 1 overall pick. They revealed a plan for a $3.2 billion stadium just south of Soldier Field. The total cost of the plan, including infrastructure changes in the area, were estimated to cost as much as $4.7 billion as the Bears committed $2 billion to the project.

But the project didn’t get much support from Illinois lawmakers, including Gov. JB Pritzker, as they said public funding was a nonstarter. The team also considered a stadium site at the former Michael Reese Hospital location in the city’s Bronzeville neighborhood not far away from Soldier Field.

As conversations in the city stalled, there was more clarity back in Arlington Heights. The team and school districts reached a tentative agreement over their property tax dispute.

2025

Despite keeping their options open both on the lakefront and Arlington Heights, the Bears seemed to shift their focus to the suburbs in 2025.

They submitted financial and traffic studies for that site in March and later confirmed in May that they had shifted their focus to Arlington Heights. Warren reiterated that point in August and then on the afternoon of the Bears’ season-opener against the Minnesota Vikings in September, he sent out a letter that announced that Arlington Heights would be the site of their new stadium.

But the process wasn’t so clear-cut. Illinois legislatures needed to approve a mega project state legislation in Springfield that would allow the team to negotiate with local governments over property tax bills during its fall veto session. The body ended the year by not voting on the legislation.

That inactivity led Warren to send out an open letter in December a few days before the Bears’ big Week 16 home game against the Green Bay Packers. In the letter, Warren announced that it the team was reopening its search for a location to build its stadium in the Chicago area, including Northwest Indiana.

2026

Indiana started the new year by showing how serious it took the Bears’ consideration to move to its state.

The Indiana Senate approved a bill toward the end of January that established the Northwest Indiana Stadium Authority. The body will be tasked with acquiring land and financing the construction of a sports stadium. The bill still needs to be approved by the state’s house and Gov. Mike Braun.

The city of Gary also released three different locations for a stadium within the city in January.

Indiana’s quick action forced Illinois lawmakers to change their approach about the stadium. On Monday, Pritzker was more open to making sure a deal could be reached to keep the Bears in Illinois.

“I never take anything as if it’s a bluff,” Pritzker told reporters Monday at an unrelated event. “I’m always concerned about making sure we’re attracting businesses or keeping businesses in the state of Illinois. So, we’re in consistent conversation with the Chicago Bears. Have been, by the way, for a year and half or two years and specifically, I think there’s a real possibility that many of the things that we put on the table to work with the Bears on are things that they’re willing to do to stay in the state of Illinois.”

Time will tell whether those conversations will lead to the Bears staying in Illinois. But after six years, it seems the Bears could finally get an answer about where their new home will be sooner rather than later.