Three industrial companies announced plans to build facilities in a West Chicago business park with two more expected to follow, combining for about a million square feet of new space across 170 acres.
Leaders of the DuPage Airport Authority, which owns the 800-acre DuPage Business Center, said Suncast Corp., Greco and Sons Inc. and Norix Group Inc. will build manufacturing or warehouse sites on the campus, according to the Daily Herald.
Construction is already underway on a 782,000-square-foot distribution warehouse and showroom for Suncast, a Batavia-based wood product manufacturer. The building would be owned and managed by Pritzker Realty Group.
Furniture manufacturer Norix Group and food distributor Greco and Sons will also build industrial facilities, together spanning more than 50 acres. The authority chairman said two other relocations were “pending,” totaling five companies he said would add up to more than 1 million square feet of space.
The DuPage Business Center is about 10 miles north of Aurora, and 37 miles west of Downtown Chicago. It was originally built to accommodate technology companies, but earlier attempts to attract business there floundered.
Shrinking vacancies and rising rents are pushing millions of square feet of speculative industrial development across the Chicago area, both in the city and around the suburbs.
A CBRE report last month listed Chicago among the hottest markets in the country for industrial development. [Daily Herald] — Alex Nitkin