Hilco Redevelopment Partners is moving ahead with plans for 1 million square feet of warehouses on the site of the shuttered Crawford Power Plant on the South Side.
The Northbrook-based firm held community meetings this week on its plans to tear down the hulking former coal-fired plant and replace it with an industrial development, according to Block Club Chicago.
The plant was shut down in 2012 along with another coal-fired plant on the South Side after years of pressure from environmental and community groups.
The Chicago Tribune reported in February that Hilco plans to spend more than $100 million tearing down the Crawford facility, cleaning up the 70-acre site and building the new industrial complex near Interstate 55, Pulaski Road and the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal.
The complex, which is being built on spec, is expected to take up to two years to complete, the Tribune said.
Driven by rising e-commerce sales and a thirst for warehouse and distribution space, Chicago’s industrial market has been on a hot streak, with rents hitting a record high in the second quarter.
Hilco’s project site is within a broader swath of the Near Southwest Side that’s seeing a flurry of industrial investment and development. Not far away, Angelo Gordon & Co. bought a 189,000-square-foot baking plant for $20.3 million.
Banner Wholesale Grocers just developed a new warehouse at 3000 South Ashland Avenue, Amigos Foods is building a new 110,000-square-foot processing and warehouse facility near 51st and Kedzie, Venture One and USAA are developing a $17.5 million speculative logistics complex at 2445 South Rockwell Street, and Marina Cartage is building massive spec industrial complex at 2075 West 43rd Street. [Block Club] — John O’Brien