Ford forges expansion path
Automaker opens facility in Chicago within sprawling Southeast Side industrial park under development
FordMotor Co. has opened a materials handling facility on the city’s Southeast Side, anchoring one of the largest industrial real estate developments in Chicago in decades.
The 360,000-squarefoot facility, near Ford’s auto assembly facility, opened in June.
It’s the first building completed within a 2.3 million-square-foot project called Commerce Park Chicago, which is expected to create as many as 1,400 jobs in 2.3 million square feet of light manufacturing, assembly and logistics facilities, according to the project’s developer.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot and other officials attended a Monday morning ceremony marking the Ford facility’s opening and the recent start of construction on two of the remaining four warehouses planned on the site.
Industrial buildings, particularly e-commerce distribution centers, have been a bright spot in the real estate industry amid otherwise difficult times brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.
Ford’s facility is at 12144 S. Avenue Oin the Hegewisch community area. It is the first of five warehouses North Point Development plans in its nearly 200-acre, $164 million Commerce Park Chicago industrial campus.
The sprawling site, near the Illinois-Indiana state line, formerly was home to a Republic Steel plant but has been vacant for two decades.
It is next to a 155-acre Ford supplier park that NorthPoint also owns, and it is a short drive from Ford’s assembly facility where the Ford Explorer, Lincoln Aviator and Police Interceptor SUVs are made.
Kansas City, Missouribased North Point is building the next two structures on speculation, or without tenants signed in advance.
The City Council last year approved up to $52 million in tax increment financing subsidies for NorthPoint’s project.
It will create 500 construction jobs annually until it is completed, according to the developer.