The Illinois FIRST program, a five-year, $12 billion initiative, has been Illinois' saving grace in the past year, helping land many of the state's top investments. In addition to Ford's supplier park, other facilities using FIRST funding are a 1.2 million-sq.-ft. (111,484-sq.-m.) Wal-Mart distribution center in Spring Valley, Pampered Chef's new corporate headquarters in Addison, Proctor & Gamble's 800,000-sq.-ft. (74,322-sq.-m.) warehouse and distribution center in Pontoon Beach, a $3 million ethanol plant in Lena, and last year's announcement by Solo Cup for a $71 million manufacturing facility on Chicago's South Side -- a project "that would not have happened if it weren't for Illinois FIRST dollars," says Pam McDonough, director of the Illinois Dept. of Commerce and Community Affairs.

Illinois' High-Tech Assets

Strong talent-based universities, including University of Chicago, Northwestern, University of Illinois both at Chicago and Champaign-Urbana, and Loyola University. 181 degree-grade institutions, with 72,500 students Illinois ranks No. 5 in the nation for number of scientist and engineers -- more than 150,000 statewide $7.5 billion in research and development investments 621 federal research labs statewide, including Argonne, Fermi and the National Center for Supercomputing 6,600 new technology firms have opened their doors since 1989, creating 30,000 jobs 17,000 high-tech firms in the state today, with 11,610 in Chicago alone Chicago ranks No. 3 in the number of high-tech workers, with a total of 288,000 AeA (formerly the American Electronics Association) and NASDAQ ranked Chicago No. 1 out of the 61 cities evaluated in the manufacture of communications equipment

     Illinois FIRST consists of two key elements that have bolstered the state's success rate in landing such projects. One is the EDGE (Economic Development for Growing Economy) credit, a job-creation tax credit. The second, which has only recently been added to the toolbox, is the Prime Sites program. Prime Sites provides money to be used in assisting companies with capital and site preparation costs as well as construction-related expenses.
     Bill Whitehead, a senior manager with PricewaterhouseCoopers' Chicago office, says the program "gives the state a long-needed business attraction tool that should help make Illinois more competitive for new corporate investment." It was primarily established to put Illinois on a level playing field with surrounding states that already had such a tax break in place.
     The effort seems to have made all the difference in the world. "In our first year, by having that tax break, we saw our success rate increase from 17 percent to 46 percent," says McDonough. "And now in the first part of the second year of the program, we're looking at what looks like about a 60 percent increase since we've put that on the table."