Bridge Industrial isn’t ready to throw in the towel on a large redevelopment project that would transform Baxter International’s headquarters campus in Deerfield into a 1.1 million-square-foot industrial complex.
The developer withdrew its proposal with the Village of Deerfield last month after being met with strong opposition from local residents and is now looking to Lake County officials to reintroduce the project through the channels of a separate government to seek approval for the project, CoStar reported.
Bridge is scheduled to discuss the redevelopment with the Lake County Planning, Building and Development Department on July 18. The county will then create a publicly available report from the meeting, and Bridge will decide whether to submit a formal development application.
With the pandemic-fueled remote work movement lowering demand for office space across the Chicago area, converting large office campuses into industrial use has become increasingly common, especially since Chicago’s industrial sector is performing strongly.
Elsewhere in Chicagoland, Dermody Properties is redeveloping the 232-acre former Allstate campus in Glenview into five warehouses totaling more than 1.2 million square feet. In Rolling Meadows, Brennan Investment Group plans to demolish a 485,000-square-foot office complex to build a Class A industrial facility.
Bridge likely paid somewhere between $90 million and $100 million for the 646,000-square-foot, 10-building Baxter campus in January, contingent on zoning approval being granted by local officials. The developer aimed to raze the buildings and replace them with a 101-acre logistics park.
But Deerfield residents pushed back. They flooded a planned village hall meeting to protest the project, forcing it to be postponed, and thousands signed a petition in opposition of it. Residents cited truck traffic, excessive noise, pollution and other factors as reasons for their resistance. Eventually, Bridge backed away during the upheaval.
It’s unclear if the developer will alter its original plans for the site, which called for warehouses of 896,700 and 228,450 square feet. If it’s approved and the sale of the property at 1 Baxter Parkway becomes official, Baxter will relocate, but the company hasn’t announced where.
— Quinn Donoghue
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