Naperville

Q. What signs of economic turnaround do you see in the communities your chamber serves?A. We continue to ask all of our members if they are beating last year, and thankfully, we hear more often than not, that things have stabilized and are trending in the right direction. We've reviewed tax data that is showing that declines have stopped, which means spending is remaining flat or growing. But it is still incredibly tough out there and we expect it to be tough for a while. However, we've always witnessed and known that during the "good old days" this is still a very competitive, tough market for any business. To succeed, a business needs to exceed expectations and deliver value to their customers and clients.Q. Please identify one project that is an example of that turnaround.A. The best indicator of economic recovery are leading businesses making significant adjustments and plans. The commitment from Navistar to build a new world headquarters in Lisle and Peerless Industries planning on brining 800 manufacturing jobs to Aurora are two signs of businesses being willing to make a substantial investment in our community.Additionally, Naperville has some great publicly traded companies that have recently reported stronger profits and trending in the right direction.A community leader just got approval from the Naperville City Council for a condo development project in downtown Naperville and we are hearing and observing people planning and having an eye on the future.Q. What type of new development will be most prevalent? Retail, residential, industrial, office or something else?A. Redevelopment of existing assets will be the dominant type of development in Naperville and in our neighboring communities. We remain hopeful that the DuPage Technology Park will continue to attract high-end research and development. We also view the proposals like the Navistar relocation to Lisle as being the defining recovery efforts we need. Chicago and our region need to focus on augmenting our existing base of employers and skills, with other industries that have a symbiotic or related industries. The work the county did to secure Peerless Industries to expand their manufacturing facilities and hopefully that is the start of a trend. However, job growth won't typically come 3,600 or 700 jobs at a time. It will come from the smaller, 25- to 100-job companies who are looking to establish a presence, and we need to find a way to help them grow and foster in our community and region. Without jobs, whether they be typical office, research, engineering, industrial or retail, you cannot have a growing demand for housing without good quality jobs.Q. How optimistic are you that vacant storefronts and office buildings will be filled during this turnaround? Why or why not?A. The storefronts and buildings will fill up again; the question is just how long it will take and that's difficult to predict. Will we fill up tomorrow, or next month, no; are we heading in the right direction, yes. In downtown Naperville, we've had an Apple Store go in during the midst of the recession and by all accounts it's doing very well. So our developers, owners, officials and economic development team will have to continue selling our strengths and we'll get to work on some of our weaknesses. Naperville and our county are fortunate to have a highly educated work force and a population with above average wealth. Those are always positive factors in helping drive economic development and retail expansion.Q. Do you agree that this will be a jobless recovery or are the suburbs more or less immune to that?A. We're in no position to know if it will be jobless or not, but at the chamber we remain focused on doing everything we can to grow the economy. The suburbs are not immune to global economic trends. Naperville is fortunate that our unemployment rate trails Illinois, but our rate is still higher than it was before the downturn, and a few thousand families in our community are looking for work and cannot find employment. The suburbs will continue to be challenged by Illinois' reputation as an unfriendly business environment. We need to from the grass-roots local level, to the highest levels of our government, make it clear that Illinois and our communities, welcome, want and will work with businesses to expand economic opportunity.Q. What is your town's biggest economic development wish? A. We believe our greatest economic fortune is tied to the successful resolution of the Navistar relocation to Lisle. One of the keys to our recovery is to help the businesses we have here, stay here and expand. Retention is just as important as expansion and that is why we have spent the last several months working on this issue.