Speaker of the House Chris Welch puts onus on Bears to increase private investment in stadium proposal, stresses need to uplift those in Illinois and keep equity in mind

(670 The Score) If the Bears want taxpayers to help fund a new stadium along the lakefront, it sounds like they’re going to have to pledge more of their own money to the multi-billion-dollar project.

That’s the message that Illinois Speaker of the House Chris Welch continues to send in discussing the topic. On Thursday morning during an appearance on the Mully & Haugh Show, Welch reiterated there’s “just no appetite to use taxpayer money to fund stadiums for billionaires,” but he and other lawmakers are ready to listen to a revised proposal.

The Bears have pledged $2.3 billion in private funding to build a new state-of-the-art enclosed stadium on the lakefront just south of Soldier Field. Beyond that, they’ve asked taxpayers for at least $2.3 billion in public funding for a stadium project that the team claims will cost around $4.7 billion. Outside analysis suggests the price tag will be more. When including the need to retire existing debt, the cost could balloon to around $5.9 billion in total, the Sun-Times reported previously.

In a legislative session that recently ended in Springfield, the Bears’ push to get public funding gained little to no traction. With that as context, does Welch get any sense that the Bears could commit more in public funding to the project?

“I have to imagine if that’s where they started, there’s more room for them,” Welch said.

Welch stressed that at every step of the way, equity is important to him and lawmakers as they make decisions. And handing over a lot of money to sports franchise owners doesn’t help enough people in the Chicago area in his mind, at least in how the Bears as well as the White Sox have currently presented their pitches for new stadiums. The White Sox are seeking to build a new stadium in the South Loop.

“There’s no question that they would create some economic opportunities in terms of development,” Welch said. “But when I look at this thing from the lens that I look at it, how many black and brown people are going to be wealthy as a result of these projects? Who’s building these stadiums? Are the contractors from Chicago that are building these stadiums? The drawings that I saw from the Chicago Bears were architects from Minnesota. You know how many architects we have in Chicago? I’d love to put people in Chicago to work. This is about Illinois and the city of Chicago and making sure that whatever we do lifts up the state of Illinois.”

Welch put the onus on the Bears to create a better proposal and win over the public.

“It’s not my job to make it make sense,” Welch said. “It’s their job to make it make sense. They have to be the ones to help create that appetite, to create the environment that people would want to do this. And they haven’t done that so far.

“Taxpayers across the state want us talking about how we’re going to make life better for them, and talking about sports stadiums doesn’t do that. I think they really want us to focus on kitchen table issues and how to make life more affordable for them.”