Illinois: New Era of Sunshine Pushes Clouds Aside -- Site Selection magazine, March 2000

Illinois: New Era
of Sunshine Pushes
Clouds Aside (cover)

New Tools to Help
Companies Compete

Chicago's
Robust Rebirth

Suburban Chicago's
High-Tech Flair

MCI WorldCom
Connects With Rockford

Quaker Oats Stays,
Expands in Danville

Southwestern Illinois:
Distribution Destination

Carbondale and the
Route 13 Corridor

Request Information

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Chicago's Robust Rebirth

Of the many corporate real estate moves in recent months that have brought large new facilities to Illinois, Solo Cup's decision to stay in Chicago and invest $100 million perhaps best illustrates everything that's new and improved about the state's business climate.

"There's an old steel site on Lake Michigan that's been vacant for 30 years, maybe 40 years," says Christopher R. Hill, commissioner of the city of Chicago's department of planning and development. "We've been able to strike a deal with Solo Cup to relocate their facility there, and it was made possible by $16 million in assistance from the state and the city. It's a brownfield site that's coming back to use."

The maker of paper and plastic food service items had been thinking seriously of leaving Illinois for an adjacent state, but the package assembled by the state-city economic development team convinced the company to stay and set up manufacturing and distribution operations on the old U.S. Steel site.

Chicago Solo Cup's new facility, though, is just one of several big redevelopment projects under way in Chicago. For instance, Sara Lee Branded Foods moved into its new research facility last year in a building that had been vacant for more than 20 years. Thanks to $5 million in city tax-increment financing (TIF) assistance, the $38 million project will create about 200 jobs, plus bring in another 110 from Michigan.

In another big move, Stylemaster, a minority-owned plastic container manufacturer, decided to expand into a $54 million production and distribution facility that will retain 150 jobs and create another 450 during the next few years. With TIF assistance, the new 1.4 million-sq.-ft. (130,000-sq.-m.) facility is being built on the former site of an illegal dump.

Right: "Chicago does not intend to be left behind in the race for leadership in the 21st century," Mayor Richard Daley says. "If, as some people are predicting, only a handful of cities will be prominent in the furture global economy, the Chicago is going to be one of those cities."

Chicago is also brimming with new high-tech activity. "We're largely an untold story in technology development, but we're supposedly the second fastest-growing area in the United States in terms of high-tech employment," says Paul O'Connor, executive director of the Chicago Partnership for Economic Development, a newly created joint venture with the Chicago business community that's charged with mobilizing and leading the city's public and private economic development efforts. "We're already handling more Internet traffic than anyplace else on earth. And when the mayor's plan to extend next-generation fiber optics throughout the city is complete, we'll be second only to Washington, D.C., in the list of most-wired U.S. cities."

Chicago Whittman-Hart, a Chicago information technology consultant, will build a $129 million headquarters on the city's west side, aided by $23.5 million in TIF financing. On Goose Island, divine interVentures plans to build a $63 million, 7-acre (2.8-hectare) high-tech campus to house startup Internet and software companies, helped by $14 million in TIF assistance.

Near McCormick Place, the old R.R. Donnelly printing plant is being converted into the new Lakeside Technology Center -- a carrier hotel for housing telecommunications equipment and Internet servers. The city plans to kick in $4.5 million.

Obviously, Chicago (www.ci.chi.il.us) is wide open for business. "Chicago does not intend to be left behind in the race for leadership in the 21st century economy," Mayor Daley says. "If, as some people are predicting, only a handful of cities will be prominent in the future global economy, then Chicago is going to be one of those cities."

Above: Many of today's young knowledge-intensive workers increasingly prefer urban areas' dynamism to suburban settings -- a trend that figures to boost Chicago's future prospects for attracting high-tech companies.

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