CHICAGO—Bridge Development Partners, LLC has launched yet another major speculative project in the suburbs. The Chicago-based firm has already broken ground on two structures in north suburban Libertyville, and has now just bought a 202-acre business park from Cardinal Health at the southeast quadrant of Waukegan Rd. and McGaw Rd. in nearby Waukegan. In addition to these Lake County efforts, the company also recently started a 400-acre business park just over the Wisconsin border in Kenosha County.
Bridge officials say that the Wisconsin and Illinois efforts complement one another. Many large users, for example, or those that need more than 200,000-square-feet, “are going to look at properties in both of these submarkets,” director of leasing and development Steve Groetsema tells GlobeSt.com, and compare and contrast the available incentives.
Still, he points out that outside of Chicago, Lake County has the largest concentration of corporate headquarters in the state, and these companies have formed deep attachments to the area, creating a lot of demand for new industrial development. Bridge plans to demolish most of the existing structures in their new park here, known as McGaw Park and first developed in the 1960s, and break ground in April on two new speculative facilities totaling 603,000-square-feet and 400,000-square-feet.
But when Bridge finishes this first phase, the park will still have about 100 acres for build to suit or future speculative development. And Groetsema says the park ultimately won't, for the most part, serve just a few big box users. Instead, the developers will target the smaller users that populate the county, some needing only about 15,000-square-feet, and make sure the park's buildings have a relatively high percentage of office space, another typical demand from the locals.
The first phase's smaller spec, for example, “will be what we consider to be a classic Lake County building.” It will be divisible down to 40,000-square-feet, host perhaps three to five tenants and reserve 15% to 20% of its space for offices. The larger building, however, will be “more of a big box play.”
Groetsema has high hopes that the rebuilt park, a joint venture of Bridge, Hunt Realty Investments, Wanxiang America Real Estate Group and Globe Corporation, will attract a crowd of users looking for well-located, new product that lies within the borders of a municipality. “There is a demand for this but a severe lack of supply,” he says. McGaw Park had been a self-sustaining park in an unincorporated area, but as part of the development deal, Waukegan agreed to annex the land. “That was the biggest part of the 18-month due diligence process.”
“It's as good an industrial site as you will see in Lake County,” he adds. Most of the local industrial property sits apart from the best highway interchanges, but McGaw is close to two major interchanges in addition to Highway 41. “And Waukegan tends to be the most pro-development town in Lake,” unlike many of the affluent suburbs that lie between Cook County and Wisconsin. “These are beautiful towns, but we have to fight the perception that industrial buildings, even glass-covered modern ones that we build, cause noise and attract too many trucks.”
Cardinal Health will continue to occupy several of the buildings on-site which were not included in the sale. Most of the rest, however, which range from storage sheds to four- and six-story office buildings, will be demolished. “We've developed some suburban office buildings and done well in it, but what people are looking for now has totally changed,” he says. “The highest and best use of this property is to wipe the slate clean and instead accommodate industrial users of all sizes.”
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Brian J. Rogal
Brian J. Rogal is a Chicago-based freelance writer with years of experience as an investigative reporter and editor, most notably at The Chicago Reporter, where he concentrated on housing issues. He also has written extensively on alternative energy and the payments card industry for national trade publications.
