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A new chapter for West Chicago business park?

After years of setbacks, those working to develop and market the DuPage Business Center in West Chicago say there's reason to be optimistic about the sparsely populated campus.

Meanwhile, the business park's owner - the DuPage Airport Authority - is trying to decide if a different approach is needed to spur development of the 800 acres south of Roosevelt Road.

"We're excited about the developments that have taken place in the last couple of years," said David Bird, the authority's executive director.

He said DS Containers built a manufacturing and distribution facility south of Fabyan Parkway and Simpson Strong-Tie purchased a former Pella Windows sales and repair office.

"We're seeing a lot more interest in the park," Bird said.

That wasn't always the case.

Originally dubbed the DuPage National Technology Park, the site was envisioned for high-tech businesses.

State officials had so much faith in the project that the department of commerce and economic opportunity awarded a $34 million grant for roads, utilities and landscaping.

Marketing the business park started in 2005 after the airport authority signed a deal with Oak-Brook based CenterPoint Properties to develop the site.

JLL, a Chicago-based commercial real estate services firm, has since been enlisted to market the business park.

Airport authority officials said initial development attempts were hampered by the desire to create a technology park.

Despite all the money spent on infrastructure, the site had none of the elements that would normally accompany such a park. The property, for example, isn't close to an expressway.

Then the recession hit in 2008.

"We saw very little, if any, interest in the business park after that," Bird said.

Because there was so much available property as a result of the recession, it was hard for the park to compete, Bird said.

So four years ago, the airport authority changed direction.

It renamed the site the DuPage Business Center and relaxed development restrictions on the site's roughly 500 buildable acres to allow for more potential uses, including light manufacturing.

Airport officials also got permission from the Federal Aviation Administration to sell land to users who would rather own - and not lease - their parcels.

The rebranding and economic recovery have helped efforts to find tenants, said Dominic Carbonari, JLL's executive vice president of industrial services.

"The last 36 months have been the best it's been out here," Carbonari said. "We have consistent and steady activity."

Carbonari said the business park is one of the few locations left in DuPage County with sizable pieces of buildable land. He said JLL is pursuing "multiple" transactions.

On Thursday morning, JLL and CenterPoint hosted an open house at the airport for Realtors, industrial brokers and others to showcase what's been done at the business park and what the site has to offer.

In addition to DS Containers and Simpson Strong-Tie, the park has one other tenant - a data center.

Whether that's enough progress for the airport authority board remains to be seen.

Commissioners in the coming months are going to review the agreement with CenterPoint. That's because the deal - a moneymaker for the airport because it collects a development fee from CenterPoint - is set to expire next September.

A committee is meeting Friday to start evaluating the business park's development and the effectiveness of the deal with CenterPoint. The full board eventually will decide if there should be "a different structure going forward," Bird said.

  DuPage Business Center in West Chicago has struggled to find tenants since it debuted in 2005. But those working to develop and market the site say they're optimistic about the future. Mark Black/mblack@dailyherald.com
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