Hammond Mayor Thomas McDermott Jr. said he had 14 cups of coffee before his presentation Friday morning. Whether the energy he brought was because of caffeine or his excitement about the Chicago Bears and other economic development news is hard to say.
“We were on a roll without the Bears, but we are definitely on a roll right now,” he said.
Chicago Bears stadium saga: A timeline of key events, from Arlington Heights to Hammond
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McDermott spoke at the Northwest Indiana Business Roundtable’s economic outlook event at Ivy Tech Community College in Valparaiso.
The Chicago Bears stadium saga has more drama than a playoff game.
“There’s some days when you talk to me and ask, ‘Mayor, are the Bears coming,’ and I’ll be 100% positive and there’s some days that I’m not as positive, OK. And that’s because it’s changing every second.”
When the Bears were on Monday Night Football a few weeks ago, there was a Hammond city logo shown.
“We were so exhilarated; we were so happy we were high-fiving,” McDermott said. “And then literally the next day, (NFL Commissioner) Roger Goodell goes and talks to J.B. Pritzker.” Illinois was trying a Hail Mary play to keep the Bears on their side of the state line.
“It’s changing every second,” McDermott said.
One of the latest twists in “the roller coaster economic development project I’ve been working on now for about a year,” McDermott said, is speculation about the Bears moving to the Bridgeport neighborhood where the Chicago White Sox have a stadium. Skidmore, Owings and Merrill have a conceptual proposal to build a new domed stadium there.
“I think the White Sox are moving for a good reason, but hey, I don’t want to get in the middle of the story,” McDermott said.
An audience member from St. Joseph’s College in Rensselaer asked him whether the Bears would bring their training camp to Indiana. The Bears used the college for their summer training camp for decades, beginning in 1944.
“You’re trying to get me in trouble, aren’t you?” McDermott remarked. He’s got to be careful not to violate a nondisclosure agreement, recalling a news conference he attended. “I mentioned Halas Hall, and I saw about 150 cameras going off, and I knew right away I made a mistake,” he said.
The training camp isn’t part of the current deal, but if Hammond finally lands the stadium, it might be possible in the future, McDermott said. The Bears already know the strategic importance of moving to Northwest Indiana for property taxes lower than in Illinois, he said.
“I think the most important job right now is closing the deal” for the stadium, McDermott said.
It’s not an easy deal to close.
McDermott showed a map of north Hammond, including Lost Marsh Golf Course, where people initially thought the Bears stadium might be built. “There’s probably about a million golf balls right here,” McDermott quipped.
“The Bears threw us a curveball, saying not so fast,” he said. Bears President and CEO Kevin Warren was interested in a different spot – Wolf Lake Terminal.
“I saw the city differently than a typical resident did” when he became mayor, he said, but Warren opened his eyes that day.
Wolf Lake Terminal is a 110-acre peninsula. “When the Bears build in this location, it’s going to be their own little island in Indiana,” McDermott said. They could throw a rock from the site and hit Illinois.
“We did a lot of testing at Lost Marsh Park,” drilling a hundred wells. “The Bears have weekly meetings with the city of Hammond,” he said. McDermott’s administration has spent thousands of hours on this deal so far.
“The Bears are spending a lot of effort on Hammond,” so much that McDermott is optimistic.
“I think the Bears are dead serious, but what if they are playing us? What are you supposed to do?”
Would you rather have a mayor pursue a deal that might not happen or one who lets a big opportunity pass by without trying, he asked. “I would be more than happy if this all falls apart because I was optimistic enough to go for it.”
“There’s not a lot of momentum” to keep the Bears in Illinois, McDermott said. “They’re still in the same spot they’re in in Illinois.”
Indiana quickly assembled a deal to pass legislation in a bipartisan fashion to lure the Bears to Hammond. Illinois is still trying to cobble together a deal.
“The Bears have what they want, which is property tax certainty,” in Hammond, McDermott said.
Win or lose regarding the Bears, Hammond is still moving rapidly on other economic development projects.
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The new downtown Hammond train station is exceeding the original $10 million estimate, but McDermott is still happy with it. “It looks like something you’d see in Batman. That’s what I like about the building,” he said. The station is scheduled to open late summer next year.
Northwest Indiana Regional Development Authority President and CEO Sherri Ziller described the station as being a 90-second walk from The Banc, a wildly successful redevelopment project in downtown Hammond. The former Bank Calumet headquarters, now a residential building with event space on the ground floor, was already at full occupancy before the ribbon-cutting ceremony, she said.
Hammond’s firefighters union is turning the former NIPSCO Substation No. 9 at 435 Fayette St. into a union hall featuring Hammond’s first rooftop restaurant. The $750,000 project, expected to create 20 jobs, is expected to open next year.
LaSalle Hotel, once a flophouse, will have a ground-floor restaurant and commercial space with 28 residential units. It’s expected to open at the end of 2027. That’s a $3.5 million investment.
The former Mercantile National Bank building, also on Hohman Avenue, is expected to have two ground-floor restaurants and 24 upper-floor residential units. The $5 million project is expected to be completed next year, creating 15 jobs.
Tootie’s, at 475 Fayette St., is a $1 million project, creating a restaurant and bar downtown, minutes from the train station. It’s opening next year.
The former St. Margaret’s Hospital is up for redevelopment. PNW Roberts Impact Lab is expected to open in 2027. The list goes on.
“Where’s all this momentum coming from? I’ve been mayor a long time. It’s the train line, no doubt about it,” he said.
Ziller said the West Lake Corridor and Double Track NWI projects are well on their way to reaching their estimated $2.7 billion in private investment by 2041.
Doug Ross is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.