Bear hunting season is in full swing in Indiana as the House Ways and Means Committee approved a plan to build a stadium to attract the National Football League team to its state, while an Illinois effort to provide tax certainty for the footballers collapsed amid a canceled meeting of that state's House Revenue and Finance Committee.
"There's a vision for … something that changes communities across that area," said Indiana House Speaker Todd Huston, R-Fishers, a sponsor of the plan, Senate Bill 27, at the Thursday Ways and Means Committee hearing.
"This is a transformational investment for northwest Indiana and our state," he said. "We've had excellent conversations with the Chicago Bears."
The Bears have pledged to invest about $2 billion in the project, he said.
The state will enter into a public-private partnership with the team, Huston said, and
The city of Hammond will create a professional sports development area (PSDA) around the stadium and the state legislature will pass a back-end appropriation "to make sure that the bondholders know that that (money) will be there," Huston said at the hearing.
"We've been very careful and cautious as we forecasted this, the bond coverage is cautious," he said. "This deal pencils out to be a great one for northwest Indiana and the state."
"We are just getting started with structuring," Indiana Public Finance Director Jim McGoff said of the bonds.
The state is still working out how the bonds will be repaid, how much will be issued and who will issue them, McGoff told The Bond Buyer.
"I do not know what was meant by that comment," McGoff said by email, in response to a question about Huston's "cautious" bond coverage remark.
State lawmakers are asking Lake County and Porter County to adopt a 1% food and beverage tax and Lake County to adopt a 5% innkeepers' tax to support the stadium project.
In an emailed statement, a spokesperson for the Bears said, "The passage of SB 27 would mark the most meaningful step forward in our stadium planning efforts to date. We are committed to finishing the remaining site-specific necessary due diligence to support our vision to build a world-class stadium near the Wolf Lake area in Hammond, Indiana."
The Bears spokesperson did not respond to a question about the canceled Revenue and Finance Committee meeting in Illinois.
A spokesperson for Revenue and Finance Committee Chair Curtis Tarver II did not respond to questions by press time.
"Illinois was ready to move this bill forward," Matt Hill, deputy chief of staff for communications to Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker,
"After a productive three hour meeting yesterday, the Bears' leaders requested the (Illinois General Assembly) pause the hearing to make further tweaks to the bill," Hill continued. "This morning, we were surprised to see a statement lauding Indiana and ignoring Illinois."
In the Indiana hearing, Hammond Mayor Thomas McDermott, Jr., a Democrat, said the stadium project "is about jobs." Not since U.S. Steel built a plant in the city of Gary, he said, has northwest Indiana seen a project of this potential.
"It's also about something bigger: Indiana is a football state," he said. "Football is a part of who we are."
"That comparison is one of the worst that I have ever read from a stadium advocate," said Robert Baumann, professor of economics at College of the Holy Cross, about the U.S. Steel comment. Baumann
"(Northwest Indiana) would be much better off with a steel factory than a stadium," Baumann said by email. "A factory would employ more people at a higher wage and be used consistently throughout the year. The stadium will employ a lot of construction workers at first, but after that it will be largely part-time workers. These facilities are dormant well over 90% of the time."
At the hearing, Valparaiso Mayor Jon Costas said the economic benefits of the stadium would be far-reaching. Valparaiso is in neighboring Porter County.
"The tourism impact will be felt throughout the region," he said. "We believe that in light of the expected economic boon to the city … the impact on our citizens (of the new taxes) would be minimal compared to the benefits."
Baumann said another way to see this is as "a localized tax increase to build an asset for a very wealthy ownership group who doesn't live in the area."
He added, "There is no evidence that stadiums are economic drivers. Advocates cannot point to a single stadium that has generated net economic impact and there have been several publicly funded examples to look at. … Meanwhile there is plenty of evidence that tax increases will raise prices and decrease" sales.
A representative of Americans for Prosperity, a conservative political advocacy group with libertarian leanings, also testified at Thursday's hearing. The group is neutral on the bill, the rep said, but he urged lawmakers to take taxpayers into account when crafting the legislation.
AFP did not respond to a request for comment.
Kay Nelson, director of environmental affairs at the Northwest Indiana Forum, also lauded the stadium plan at Thursday's hearing, saying she's "excited to see what major projects may now come our way as a result of this announcement."
There is no economic incentive to relocate a company outpost simply because a stadium is nearby, and "I would not recommend excitement because the major projects are not coming," Baumann said.
"This process has been a great commercial for our region," Nelson said.
