Building a stadium takes a lot of involvement beyond just the stadium itself. I’ve thought for awhile now that the Bears have been saying they would pay for the stadium. It’s all the work around the stadium they don’t want to pay for, that they need the state and local gvt to pick up. If they had developed this entirely privately, they would need a private party to pick up the outlying pieces and probably infrastructure. But since that looks unlikely (development in general is down and interest rates are up) a public partner really is their only other option.