Joliet City Manager Discusses Warehouse Control
During a Joliet City Council meeting this past Monday, Interim City Manager Martin Shanahan Jr. clarified that there are no current plans to discourage anymore warehouses from being built in the area.
At the meeting, two city residents voiced their concerns on the amount of development being done in the Joliet area of the Interstate 80 corridor. These residents were speaking in opposition to add more than one million square feet of warehouse space in New Lenox at Spencer and Cherry Hill roads.
According to a Crain’s Chicago Business article, “the Interstate 80 corridor had the highest vacancy rate at 11.8 percent among the Chicago industrial submarkets.”
During the streaming of the city council meeting, Shanahan replied to this data by saying, “We do not tell laundromats, grocery stores or any other businesses that they cannot locate in Joliet because there are too many in our town.”
This increase in the number of warehouses built in the Joliet area has consequently caused semi-trucks to clog up local freeways and residential streets, forcing citizens like University of St. Francis student Ashley Hare to publicaly voice her frustrations.
“I am a commuting student who lives right off of Interstate 80. I deal with the constant semi truck traffic on a daily basis. I do support truck drivers, because they conveniently bring goods to our city, however, it is poor decision making by the City of Joliet and Will County for continuing to build these warehouses in communities where children, teenagers and adults live,” she said.
Hare then went on to explain the damaging effects this industrial development has already begun to show. She said that “Interstate 80 and several overpasses in the community are not structurally sound enough to hold these heavy weighted trucks. The Briggs Street overpass is currently being supported by wood planks. It feels like city officials are only concerned about revenue and couldn’t care less about its citizens.”
At the end of the city council meeting, Margie Cepon, a Joliet resident, urged the council to examine how the data is benefiting the city, stating that, “Your decision should be data driven.”
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Hannes Egler on Unsplash
