The Chicago Bears are shifting their focus for a new stadium away from the city’s lakefront and back to Arlington Heights and a project that would depend on legislative action in Springfield allowing for negotiated financing of large-scale developments.

“Over the last few months, we have made significant progress with the leaders in Arlington Heights, and look forward to continuing to work with state and local leaders on making a transformative economic development project for the region a reality,” the team said in a statement to the Tribune on Friday.

The Bears said they will not seek state funding for a stadium in the northwest suburb. That would be welcome news in Springfield, where Gov. JB Pritzker and key lawmakers have repeatedly shown no enthusiasm for putting taxpayer money toward a stadium.The team is likely, however, to seek state funding for infrastructure.

The Bears would likely need “megaproject” legislation that would allow them to negotiate with local governments over property tax bills. With only two weeks to go in the spring legislative session, passing such a measure quickly might be a tall order, especially for Chicago lawmakers with an interest in keeping the team in the city.

“I don’t know who works with the Bears on their timing, but I would say … they’ve mastered the art of bad timing,” said state Sen. Robert Peters, a progressive Democrat from Chicago who has announced a congressional run and whose district includes Soldier Field. “I wish they could master the art of having a good team instead of doing this.”

State Rep. Mary Beth Canty, a Democrat from Arlington Heights and former village trustee who is working on a proposal that could deliver the long-term tax certainty the team has sought, said Friday’s announcement was “promising.”

“I have always felt that Arlington Heights is a great place for them to want to set up a much broader business,” Canty said, while adding that she still had questions about how the Bears’ presence would affect Arlington Heights and surrounding communities.

Pritzker’s office declined to comment Friday on the Bears’ announcement as well as his position on megaproject legislation.

Original estimates indicated that a $2 billion stadium in Arlington Heights would be part of a $5 billion, 326-acre mixed-use development that would include an entertainment district that would help fund the deal. It would be dependent on reaching agreement with local taxing bodies over property taxes and other financial aspects, as well as possible state funding for infrastructure improvements around the site.

The Bears’ decision to turn its attention back to building a stadium complex in Arlington Heights opens the latest but likely not the final chapter in a saga that has percolated across the region for years.

The Bears have played in Chicago ever since the signature NFL franchise moved from Decatur in the early 1920s, but the team’s two main homes — Wrigley Field and Soldier Field — have always been owned by others, and neither has been a perfect fit.

The team’s lease with the Chicago Park District, which owns Soldier Field, runs through 2033, but the agreement would allow the team to pay a penalty if it leaves early, a price tag that would decrease each year until the deal expires.

Left unanswered is how to address the $525 million in outstanding public debt from the controversial 2003 stadium renovation, a tab currently covered by the city’s hotel tax and, when that falls short, by its share of state income tax dollars. That could be a make-or-break issue for some Chicago lawmakers.

Should the team move forward with relocating to the former Arlington International Racecourse site, the Bears would have significantly more control not only over the stadium that would be built but the surrounding acres.

But spurning its namesake city would both bruise Chicago’s ego and be a political hit for Mayor Brandon Johnson.

A mayoral spokesman said Johnson last week “spoke with executive leadership from the Chicago Bears, who indicated they intend to prioritize the development site located in the village of Arlington Heights.”

“As the mayor has said several times, the door remains open in the city of Chicago,” Johnson spokesman Cassio Mendoza said in a statement.

Johnson has spent much of the past year championing the team’s pitch for a $5 billion domed stadium project on the lakefront just south of Soldier Field that would be half-funded by taxpayer dollars. His full-throated support cost him some credibility with his progressive base after he campaigned on a promise to not publicly subsidize the franchise, but he has countered that the lakefront package challenged “billionaires to put skin in the game” via a promised $2.3 billion private investment.

Though Pritzker and the leadership in the Illinois General Assembly responded tepidly to the plan, Johnson did not back down and said as recently as last month that no politician has worked as hard as he has to keep the Bears in Chicago.

“There’s no more pressure to apply, for me,” Johnson said in April. “I want the Bears to stay in Chicago. I do. Now look, ultimately it’s going to come down to their own decision.”