Spec Industrial Alive and Well in Aurora

AURORA, IL-Chicago-area commercial real estate development, particularly office properties, mirrors the slowdown in the greater US economy, but if recent ground-breakings are any indication, there’s still an interest in getting spec industrial properties out of the ground and onto the market–and the financing to do so.

Within the space of a few weeks this summer, three large industrial projects in Chicago’s far western suburb of Aurora have gotten under way. Aurora, a town of about 100,000 straddling the Fox River, is connected to Chicago and the Interstate system by I-88, locally known as the East-West Corridor. The western reaches of Aurora, in particular, have been of interest to spec developers in search of relatively inexpensive land.

HSA Commercial Development has started work on the 382,400-sf Aurora Distribution Center, a single-story facility. In Ridge Realty Group’s West Ridge Corporate Center, also in Aurora, a 325,400-sf distribution facility is now under construction, the first building in that business park. And Opus North Corp. recently began Butterfield V, a 219,900-sf structure in the Butterfield Center for Business & Industry, a 900-acre multi-use park in Aurora.