What's Up Downstate?

Okay, so Chicago isn't everything, even if it's most. And the entire state does not hinge on its magnetic hub, though it seems to.
        For one thing, there's the St. Louis effect, which has helped the prospects of several communities and projects on the Illinois side, primarily for major distribution centers like those at the Gateway Commerce Park.
        But it even extends to the little town of Pinckneyville, 22 miles (35.4 km.) from the nearest Interstate, where Technicolor Universal Media Services, a division of Thomson Electronics, is investing $20 million ($7 million to date) in the expansion of its CD and DVD replication facility. The operation, known as TUMS, has brought soothing relief to area leaders as a source of jobs, having added some 371 to the 800-person payroll in the past two years.
        The division has invested $70 million in a similar facility in Piaseczno, Poland, with similar employment numbers as well. Dana Banks, director of PR and corporate communications for Technicolor, says the operations and equipment are basically the same for the two far-flung facilities, although they may vary due to the size and scope of packaging requirements.
        In Danville, hard by the Indiana border, fiberglass roofing mat maker Fiberteq is investing more than $51 million in a plant expansion. The facility's product is shipped to parent plants of joint venture owners Owens Corning and IKO for final conversion into asphalt roofing products.
        In Canton, southwest of Peoria, and in Carbondale, near the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, new ethanol plants are drawing investments of $64 million and $60 million respectively. They are two of some dozen ethanol plants in various stages of development around the state, all supported by a new sales tax exemption and grant measure signed into law by Gov. Blagojevich in June 2003.
        A public project with private-sector implications, in Urbana-Champaign, home of the University of Illinois, points up another statewide push. The National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) broke ground in October 2003 on a $30-million, 142,000-sq.-ft. (13,192-sq.-m.) building that will anchor an entire IT-oriented quadrangle at

See the SITES Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity www.illinoisbiz.biz World Business Chicago www.worldbusinesschicago.com CenterPoint Properties www.centerpoint-prop.com Chicago Department of Aviation www.ohare.com

the university. Part of the governor's overall economic development strategy for the state is the development of university-based research and business infrastructure hand-in-hand with the more traditional bridges-and-roads variety.
        Finally, in Effingham, always one of the top-performing small towns in Site Selection's annual analysis, HN Automotive is pursuing a $15-million expansion that will add more than 50 new employees to the payroll.

A Base for Business Basics

North or south, state line or central, any Illinois community offers the ineluctable advantage of being in the middle. Stability seems to emanate from that basic geographical fact.
        Asked to name the biggest positive and negative about conducting operations in Illinois, CenterPoint's Mike Mullen says that rising real estate taxes are always a concern – but a concern usually outweighed by larger issues.
        "I'm on the board of directors of NAIOP [National Association of Industrial and Office Properties], and whenever I come back from one of our national conferences, I want to kiss the ground at O'Hare," he says, citing a regional understanding of what makes industrial and manufacturing activity so essential.
        "When I hear about what my brethren on the coast have to put up with, it seems to me like the Midwest is still a great place to do business," he says. "Business here still makes sense."