Illinois megaprojects bill clears major hurdle

Bloomberg News

The Illinois House advanced a megaprojects bill with inducements for the NFL’s Chicago Bears to stay in Illinois, and that would allow for higher taxes in sales tax and revenue bond, or STAR bond, districts.

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The Bears, who have been flirting with a move to Indiana, are seeing what they can get out of Illinois for a stadium in suburban Arlington Heights.

HB 910 passed the House on Wednesday, led by state Rep. Kam Buckner, D-Chicago, and will now be considered by the Illinois Senate. The bill would authorize an assessment freeze for megaprojects, with host municipalities required to negotiate payments in lieu of taxes, as well as tax breaks on construction materials. 

The bill would also allow for admission and transaction taxes of up to 9% of gross receipts within STAR bond districts to reimburse developers for eligible project costs.

And it would amend previous legislation to create a new category of New Opportunities for Vacation and Adventure district, the NOVA urban district. 

The bill includes some last-minute changes, among them a provision directing half of megaproject PILOT funds to a locally held property tax relief fund. And 60% of that half would be earmarked for rebates for residential homeowners in the megaproject’s taxing jurisdiction, with the rest going to a statewide property tax relief fund.

The legislation also contains a provision banning data centers from being approved as megaprojects.

In response to questions about the bill, a spokesman for Gov. JB Pritzker emailed a statement which said in part, “Governor Pritzker has been clear and consistent for years that the Bears should remain in Illinois, and that any legislation needs to protect taxpayers. … The governor’s office looks forward to working with the Illinois General Assembly to advance a bill that reflects our shared priorities.”

A Bears spokesman responded to questions with the following emailed statement: “We welcome the progress made on the House’s version of the mega project bill; however, additional amendments are necessary to make the Arlington Heights site feasible for our stadium project. We support Illinois leaders as they determine the path forward to making the essential changes to the mega project bill and aligning on infrastructure funding.”

At a Friday press conference, Pritzker said much of the total $800 million of promised infrastructure investment in and around Arlington Heights “are projects that would happen anyway.”

He also noted that the page count of the bill had ballooned as it made its way through the House, saying some of the amendments “I think for the Bears anyway, didn’t make sense” — for example, the up to 9% amusement tax. 

“Now you’ve got a bill that probably has too many items associated with it,” he said. “The Bears need to have certain things in the bill and certain things not, so those are going to be guiding the amendments that go through the Senate, I believe.”

“The principle here was to put a bill together that would work for the Chicago Bears,” Pritzker added, but “this bill is really about economic development broadly for the state.”

He also called for the bill to move quickly, saying “there is a need for speed,” especially in light of the NFL’s stadium committee meeting with the Bears this week and Indiana Gov. Mike Braun’s February signing of legislation considered very favorable to the Bears.

“If it is not obvious that the Senate is moving in the right direction, I think that will make it challenging,” Pritzker said of the negotiations.