Brandon Johnson, Kevin Warren meet again, release statement as Bears explore move to suburbs

LAKE FOREST, Ill. — One again, a prominent member of the Chicago Bears and the leader of the Chicago have had a meeting as the NFL franchise explores a stadium move outside the city.

It’s the second time this has happened this summer.

Bears president and CEO Kevin Warren and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson announced that they’ve had another meeting following their first in June. Warren officially joined the Bears this spring while Johnson was elected Chicago’s 57th mayor in April.

Like before, the details of the discussion were not revealed.

“We continued our productive discussion this week that began in early June.  We plan to have regular dialogue with each other, and across our respective staffs, as we work together to meet the needs of the citizens of Chicago and Bears fans,” said Johnson and Warren in a joint statement released early Thursday afternoon.

This comes as the team is exploring the possibility of playing home games outside of the City of Chicago for the first time since they moved here from Decatur in 1921. Since moving to the city, the Bears called Wrigley Field home from that first season through 1970 before starting play at Soldier Field.

While there were proposals for a new stadium outside of the Chicago limits before, this is the most serious since the team has purchased the former Arlington Park property in Arlington Heights. Closed in February of this year, the Bears have already begun demolition of the former horse racing track.

Yet the team announced in June that Arlington Park is not the “singular focus” in their search for a new stadium. Since then, Naperville, Waukegan, Aurora, and Richton Park have reached out to the Bears in hopes of wooing them to build a stadium in their municipality.

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