CHICAGO — As Indiana and Illinois lawmakers spar over where the Chicago Bears should build a new stadium, even Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker acknowledged Friday the team’s next home is unlikely to rise within Chicago’s city limits.

“I think now there’s a common understanding by most of the (Illinois) General Assembly that they’re not going to be able to build in the city of Chicago,” Pritzker said.

Pritzker’s pronouncement came a day after Indiana lawmakers took another step toward potentially luring the Chicago Bears across the border to Hammond, as a key Indiana House committee approved a plan to create an agency that would build a new stadium for the team.

The vote more firmly pits Indiana versus Illinois as the Bears weigh a move from Soldier Field, their home for more than half a century. And given the lack of movement on any stadium projects near Soldier Field or elsewhere in Chicago, Pritzker’s latest comments suggest that Illinois’ only viable option is the land the Bears own in northwest suburban Arlington Heights.

“For at least a year and a half, there has been a significant effort by the Bears as well as by Chicago lawmakers and others to try to figure out if the Bears could build what they need to build in the city of Chicago,” Pritzker said Friday. “They looked, and they, I think, gave the old college try, so to speak, to try to find a place within the city of Chicago, and they couldn’t.”

Transportation and a sufficiently large site are “very hard to find in a dense city like the city of Chicago,” Pritzker said, in comments he made at an unrelated press conference in Oak Park. “So that’s why I think we’re down to the question of whether they’re going to build in Arlington Heights or they’re going to build something in the state of Indiana.”

The governor’s latest comments on the Bears’ prospects in Chicago came in response to a question about whether he was trying to prevent Chicago lawmakers’ hesitancy to let the Bears leave the city from allowing the team to leave the state.

Neither the Indiana nor the Arlington Heights plans are guaranteed, but Indiana officials tried to portray this week’s moves as giving them the leg up in wooing the charter NFL franchise east.

The Indiana overtures do keep pressure on Illinois to potentially ease the Bears’ path to staying in-state as Illinois’ spring legislative session continues. Pritzker previously has said he is open to the state helping fund infrastructure tied to a stadium project, such as new expressway ramps and utilities, but only if the deal benefits Illinois taxpayers.

Still, Pritzker, after having said Illinois and Bears officials had been making progress, now sounds less enthusiastic about the state of Illinois’ relationship with the team. That followed Indiana’s moves, the Bears’ supportive comments about those developments and what the governor said was the Bears’ request to pause an Illinois House hearing on proposed legislation related to property taxes on so-called “megaprojects” that could help keep the Bears in Illinois. Illinois lawmakers on Thursday morning canceled that hearing in Springfield.

After the Indiana House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee voted Thursday 24-0 to establish a northwest Indiana stadium authority, the Bears released a statement saying the passage “would mark the most meaningful step forward in our stadium planning efforts to date.”

The Illinois governor on Thursday said he was “surprised, dismayed, very disappointed” by that statement from the Bears and on Friday said he was hopeful discussions could get back on track.

“It’s a choice by the Bears about whether or not they want to be in the state of Illinois,” Pritzker said.

Even if the team continues to talk to both states, Pritzker said, “I think the Bears need to make their intentions known.”

Whether the topic was Indiana or Arlington Heights, Chicago lawmakers have been hesitant to help the Bears leave the city. The Bears in recent years examined a number of sites in and around Chicago, including the one near Soldier Field on the lakefront and on the former site of Michael Reese Hospital.

“Hammond, Arlington Heights? They ain’t Chicago,” Mayor Brandon Johnson said during his weekly City Hall presser on Tuesday.

Arlington Heights Village Manager Randy Recklaus participated in Wednesday’s meeting between team and state officials, a news release from the village said.

“Bears representatives have repeatedly assured the Village that the news regarding Indiana does not mean that they have made any decisions on a final site location, and that they will continue the frequent and productive discussions that have been underway in Illinois,” the release said. “The news from Indiana underscores the need for urgency on this matter for Illinois leadership to work towards passing the Mega Projects Bill.”

A spokesperson for the Bears declined to comment Friday. Bears President and CEO Kevin Warren previously said Arlington Heights was the only viable option in Cook County.

Asked whether the Bears leaving Illinois would mark a failure of the state’s ability to negotiate, Pritzker said “there’s a limit to what the taxpayers of Illinois are going to spend on a stadium or on infrastructure.”

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Chicago Tribune reporters Bob McCoppin and Alice Yin contributed.

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