Johnson: Business park could get $250 million boost

Elk Grove Village could see up to $250 million invested in improvements at its business park within the next 10 years through public-private partnerships, said Mayor Craig Johnson Thursday during his annual State of the Village address to the business community.

The village will be unveiling its second 10-year industrial/commercial revitalization plan next Thursday, Johnson said.

“We spent over $50 million in the first phase, over half of that — $27 million — came from federal, state, and county grants,” Johnson said.

The money funded improvements such as new lighting, landscaping, and intersection widening.

Johnson said he hopes the village can again tap into outside funding for the next phase of business park revitalization.

“There are so many county, state and federal programs out there,” he said. “We’ve got people working full-time on achieving that.”

Johnson said improving the village’s 100 million-square-foot business park also will require forging stronger financial partnerships with businesses.

“We have to learn to be more adaptive to today’s needs than in the past,” Johnson said. “We are going to become a business partner.”

The long-range plan for the business park calls for improvements to parking and maximizing land uses through new development and expansion of existing buildings.

“There’s different ways of doing parking. This country is a sea of asphalt. It’s a waste of valuable real estate,” Johnson said. “We are leaving 80 percent of our land (unused). We want to make that land productive.”

Johnson said the village would consider all alternatives to reducing the footprint of parking lots, including underground and above ground parking structures, and encourage businesses to share parking where possible.

Johnson said the village also needs to work with businesses to get easements so improvements can be made to roadways. That could require re-sizing of lots to maximize use.

“We are going to reach out and work with the business community and make these improvements,” he said.

Johnson promoted the village’s new website, developed as a tool for businesses looking to locate in town and to help tackle business park vacancies.

The site, elkgrovesites.com, leads to a searchable database of vacant properties and buildings with specifics on each site, including a map of the location, photos, building square footage and dimensions.

Since 2008, the village has lost nearly $4 million in sales tax receipts. Combined with a decline in building permit fees, real estate transfers, hotel/motel and income taxes, that’s left the village about $6 million short in revenue.

But things are starting to looking up, Johnson said.

The vacancy rate at the 5-square-mile business park, where more than 100,000 people work in a diverse mix of local, national and international companies, has dropped from nearly 15 percent in 2009 to slightly more than 12 percent in March. The village’s unemployment rate also is down from roughly 9 percent in February 2010 to nearly 7 percent a year later.

The village also has seen a significant increase in the number of building permits issued and fees collected compared to March a year ago, leading to about $13 million in increased construction value, Johnson said.

“We are finally starting to see some turnaround that we’ve been waiting for,” he said. “Already we’ve seen a trend in the last four months that the sales tax is increasing. We didn’t raise taxes so that makes us more attractive (to businesses).”

More than 100 businesses have moved to Elk Grove Village or expanded operations in the past year, he added.