LOVES PARK, IL—GE Aviation has just signed a lease renewal for 151,921-square-feet at 1354 Clifford Ave. in Loves Park, IL, a suburb of the northern Illinois city of Rockford. The new lease nearly doubles its leased space in the 453,600-square-foot industrial plant, originally constructed in 1953. An operating unit of GE, the company provides jet, turboshaft and turboprop engines, components and integrated systems for commercial, military, business and general aviation aircraft.

The building is currently in receivership and Lloyd E. Berry, senior vice president and director of operations with Colliers International's Real Estate Management Services group, serves as the court-appointed receiver. Berry and Lynn E. Reich, executive vice president with Colliers Chicago's Industrial Advisory Group, completed the lease. GE Aviation was represented by Brent Woodruff and John Gledhill of CBRE.

The expansion is another hopeful sign for the Rockford economy, which went through some tough years but has retained some key industries, such as aerospace, that have a long history in the area. Woodward Inc., for example, a company founded in Rockford in 1870, broke ground late last year on a $200 million aerospace manufacturing plant in Loves Park, which Eric Voyles, executive director of the I-39 Logistics Corridor Association, a local business development group, says will eventually bring in as many as 1,700 jobs.

And earlier this year, John Folvig, a principal of The LandMark Group of Companies, a Rockford-based development and investment firm, told GlobeSt.com that the city had begun to see “new developments started, and a lot of leasing activity, including expansions and renewals.”

Instant Insights /

GE Aviation Doubles Space in N. Illinois

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