"We need another airport," Blagojevich said in Thursday's "State of the State" address. "And, if we build it, we can create 15,000 jobs in an area of our state that desperately needs jobs."
The need for an airport about 35 miles south of the Loop in Will County has been questioned as airlines such as United and American, who have the largest number of gates at O'Hare, continue to fly in financial turbulence. However, US Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. has advanced a plan calling for a privately developed airport, and the state already has begun buying some of the 4,200 acres needed. LCOR Inc. of New York and Canada-based SNC-Lavalin have signed on to build a five-gate terminal, 10,000-foot runway, taxiways and parking lot for $200 million.
"I want to submit a plan to the FAA by this spring so people can start working and planes can start flying," Blagojevich says. The five-gate, 142,000-sf terminal could open in 2009, according to Jackson, while a second phase could add 15 more gates in a 340,000-sf terminal by 2013. Cost of that addition is estimated at $150 million. For another $200-million, a 36-gate, 750,000-sf terminal could be added.
Meanwhile, Blagojevich says the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity will create a division focusing on offering financial incentives to companies that make products such as air filters and wireless tracking devices, in hopes of luring them to the state. He also suggested the state's military bases, such as the Great Lakes Naval Station in North Chicago, can serve as testing grounds for new homeland security products. "It's critical that we do everything possible to not only keep our bases open, but that we expand them and make them more useful than ever," Blagojevich said. "This initiative makes that possible."
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