"The owner was politely told we were better off moving to Elk Grove Village," says Jerry Shields, president of the company situated on a triangular property at 3705 N. Lincoln Ave., backing up to the Chicago Transit Authority Brown Line elevated tracks.

Shields says his firm is regularly courted by officials far outside the market in Wisconsin and Iowa, where free land and buildings, lower taxes and lower costs of doing business could be had. But he's staying put.

"The real plus is we have good people," Shields says of his highly-skilled work force. "The average tenure in our shop exceeds 10 years. And we have a city that, while it's not perfect, works and enables us to survive in Chicago. We don't want to go to Iowa. No matter how attractive those deals are, we want to stay in Chicago."

However, property taxes and contentious zoning issues give others in Shields' shoes a case of wanderlust. Taxes are top issue among industrial users, says DePaul University professor Jill Kickul, who analyzed NORBIC's data, while affordable space was third and zoning fifth. It would not surprise many at the group's industrial forum Thursday if zoning soared up the chart.

"Affordable land use for industrial development remains a critical issue," says Theodore J. Wysocki Jr., president of the Chicago Association of Neighborhood Development Organizations. The issue will intensify, he explains, as a city reform commission wraps up the city's first rewrite of the zoning code in more than four decades.

"This land use battle will become more fierce over the next two years," Wysocki says, adding it will be more contentious than the recently-completed aldermanic ward redrawing. Although the city has designated five Planned Manufacturing Districts, there will be pressure from some aldermen who wish to cave in to developers of luxury multifamily projects, he explains. The Near West and Near South sides will prove to be battlegrounds, Wysocki predicts. "The greed of speculators shouldn't dictate land use policy," he says.

The pressure is constant, one alderman notes."A day doesn't go by when I don't get a call from an eager developer who wants to take an industrial building and convert it to a lovely condominium project," says Alderman Gene Schulter, whose 47th ward includes Graymills, a company he helped keep in his early years on the job. "My job is to say 'no' to a lot of those developers."

Meanwhile, Trumbull's job is to get company leaders and industrial users such as Shields to say "yes" to staying in Chicago, even if it means relocating from redevelopment heavy areas such as West Lakeview and the rest of the North Side to the South and West sides. "Sometimes the existing sites aren't big enough or the surrounding neighborhood has changed," Trumbull explains. "Last year, we helped nine North Side companies move to industrial corridors. If there are 38 companies in your survey who want to relocate, I want to know who they are because we can help them move in the city."

If those firms are in Schulter's ward, they won't be automatically steered elsewhere. However, he is not naïve to the market realities. "You came to probably one of the hottest neighborhoods in the city of Chicago," Schulter says. "That's great, but we also have to work to have a balanced community, and that can be tough."

Instant Insights /

Industrial Users Key Players in Balancing Act

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