Gov. Pritzker should lift the brick on job-creating project

It’s hard to see, but peer down that tunnel and you’ll see light. The vaccine rollout is happening, albeit too slowly. Pandemic numbers — case counts, deaths, positivity rates — are down. It’s time to start thinking about how the Chicago area and the rest of Illinois can begin to recover from the economic damage COVID-19 and shutdown orders created.

Jobs will anchor that recovery. In Will County, there’s a proposal estimated to yield 10,000 to 20,000 full-time jobs for the Chicago region’s south and southwest suburbs, some of which have been battered by the loss of manufacturing and overseas competition. The $2 billion Compass Global Logistics Hub would serve as a relay point for goods arriving by rail to two sprawling intermodal terminals a short truck drive away from the proposed site.

Together, those terminals comprise North America’s largest inland port. They’ve had to expand thanks to the explosive growth of e-commerce, and that makes the Compass project a key cog in Illinois’ embrace of what is increasingly becoming an online economy. Shopping via laptop and at-home deliveries are not going away anytime soon.

The Joliet City Council approved the project in December, and the developer, NorthPoint Development, is ready to build. So, what’s holding it up?

Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s administration. In order for the project to work, Pritzker has to agree to transfer jurisdiction of a 1.5-mile stretch of road from the village of Elwood to the Illinois Department of Transportation. Once that happens, NorthPoint will pay for the construction of a $20 million bridge over Route 53 that’s needed to link the Compass warehouse site to the two intermodal terminals, and to move truck traffic off local routes.

But Pritzker refuses to back the transfer

because Elwood, population 2,367, opposes the Compass project. Elwood officials and the town’s neighbors worry the logistics hub will worsen the pattern of truck traffic coming from the intermodal terminals.

NorthPoint says it will allay those concerns by creating a “closed loop” network of roadways, and the bridge, that will keep truck traffic off local roads.

Pritzker’s people weren’t swayed. “The way to get it done is to convince the village of Elwood,” Deputy Gov. Christian Mitchell told Crain’s Chicago Business, adding that the governor’s office did not want to seize the land on behalf of a private developer.

Pritzker’s wrong, though. His office has the authority to transfer jurisdiction of the road segment to IDOT, so it’s not about convincing Elwood to acquiesce. Besides, his administration continues to scoop up private land and use taxpayer money for an airport that doesn’t exist. Here, he has a development ready to go, spearheaded by developers welcomed by governors of other states.

NorthPoint’s plan to mitigate truck traffic makes sense. Several key lawmakers agree, including Democratic Sens. Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth. In a letter they wrote in June to Pritzker, they expressed their support for the project. “By taking swift action, we can move this project forward now, delivering an immediate and long-term solution to help Illinois recover from unprecedented crisis,” Durbin and Duckworth wrote.

Congresswoman Robin Kelly also signed off, along with congressmen Bobby Rush and Adam Kinzinger whose districts would be affected.

The project has been proposed and negotiated

for several years. And yet, Pritzker won’t budge. Some points that the governor might want to consider:

Developers of megaprojects often want all sorts of sweeteners, but NorthPoint isn’t asking for any. Their proposal doesn’t come with requests for TIF help or other incentives, either from local or state government.

NorthPoint is an out-of-state company that wants to bring to Illinois a $2 billion investment. Thanks in part to years of Springfield’s indefensible mismanagement of budgets and anti-business policies, Illinois struggles more than its neighbors to keep businesses, jobs and people from leaving.

States that seize the chance to beef up their presence in the growing online economy will win out in the long run. Providing the logistics that buoy e-commerce would be smart policymaking, especially in a part of the Chicago region that’s home to two massive freight train hubs.

“Our economy continues to evolve, and distribution and ecommerce are the future,” NorthPoint CEO Nathaniel Hagedorn told us. “Supply chains need to evolve, and Illinois can decide to be a part of it, or not.”

NorthPoint has spent five years trying to get the Compass project off the ground. It’s a fair bet that its patience isn’t everlasting. If Pritzker continues to balk, it’s not inconceivable the company could decide to take the project elsewhere, to Indiana or Wisconsin, for example. Illinois and the Chicago region cannot afford to let that happen.

In December, Pritzker said the pandemic slapped state coffers with a $2 billion hit in lost tax revenue. COVID-19 has also pushed state unemployment as high as 16%; the state’s latest jobless rate stands at 7.5%. Every mayor, county board chairman, state lawmaker and Illinois official, including Pritzker, should be turning their gaze, resources and efforts toward the post-pandemic economic recovery, both shortterm and long-term. NorthPoint should be a part of that recovery.