Ryan Improves 360-Acre Park, Swears Off Spec

JOLIET, IL-Ryan Cos. has finished nearly $10 million in work on infrastructure improvements at its 360-acre Laraway Crossing Business Park. About 180 acres of pad-ready sites are now available for build-to-suits following the company’s work completing the extension of Emerald Drive and Cashel Road, site grading on the remaining lots, and the park stormwater pond system and landscaping. The move was made by the company to take advantage of the downtime left in the wake of a market slowdown. Spec construction will halt, according to company officials.

“We were triggered to do a number of improvements, and now I think we’re more prepared than ever for when the market turns around, in having build-to-suit pads ready,” Gunther Lubben, director of development with Ryan, tells GlobeSt.com. “We shaved a lot of time off putting power and gas in the park in the future, and we’re ready to go now.”

Work on the development, at Route 53 and Laraway Road, began in 2000. When completed, the park could offer as much as six million sf, to become one of the largest industrial parks in the Chicago metropolitan area, the company said. The park currently houses two buildings representing a combined 850,000 sf: 401 E. Laraway Road, a 475,104-sf building fully leased by confectionery and beverages company Cadbury plc, and a now-vacant, 374,400-sf facility once leased by third-party logistics firm Arnold Logistics. The vacant building, which was built on spec five years ago, is expandable to 750,000 sf. “Vacancies in the Interstate 80-Joliet corridor are getting up there,” Lubben says. “The submarket has 12 million sf of inventory.”