chi-23700WestBluffRoad (3) 23700 W. Bluff Rd. in Channahon, IL, will be expandable to 1.3 million square feet.

CHICAGO—IDI Gazeley has just broken ground on a 749,554 square foot industrial speculative building at 23700 W.  Bluff Rd. in suburban Channahon, and company officials have good reasons to believe they will find tenants ready to fill that big space.

“There has been really strong demand in the Chicago area and a lot of activity among big-box tenants,” Sean Henrick, senior director, Cushman & Wakefield, tells GlobeSt.com. “And this is only one of four buildings with more than 700,000 square feet under construction in Chicago.”

Henrick, along with C&W executive director Jason West and associate director Michael Magliano are marketing the property on behalf of IDI Gazeley.

“Located immediately at the Bluff Rd. and I-55 Interchange and only three miles south of I-80, this building offers big-box tenants incredible interstate access with no traffic congestion,” says Henrick. “The intersection of I-80 and I-55 is the crossroads of America.”   

Perhaps nothing better illustrates the locale’s desirability than the activity by Amazon. The nation’s leading e-commerce firm recently agreed to fully occupy the new 746,772 square foot spec building at 201 Emerald Dr. in nearby Joliet, and 767,161 square feet at 1125 Remington Blvd. in Romeoville.    

Henrick expects the market will remain tight for tenants looking for spaces of this size. For one thing, even though there are more than a few developers actively working on plans for new big-box structures, it takes time to assemble the necessary land. “IDI Gazeley’s is one of the few that is up and running.”   

This is the first of four anticipated buildings to be constructed at the Channahon Corporate Center, a 100-acre master-planned industrial and logistics park that will have approximately two million square feet of industrial space. IDI Gazeley plans to complete this building in the first quarter of 2017.

“The building’s design offers tenants flexibility in size as well as additional land for heavy car and trailer parking requirements,” Henrick adds. It is expandable to 1.3 million square feet, and just to the west is 40 acres of land that could be used for additional parking. And like many of the newest industrial structures, it will have 36’ clear heights, a feature fast becoming the standard for projects in the Chicago region. “Anything with more than 300,000 square feet is probably going to be 36’ clear.”