Cargo Equipment manufacturer moving from Elgin to Huntley
Cargo Equipment Corporation, a leading supplier of load securement equipment and supplies headquartered in Elgin, will be relocating to a planned 40,000-square-foot building within the Huntley Corporate Park near the new interchange at Interstate 90 and Route 47.
The manufacturer — in business since 1962 — has outgrown its current facility off Route 31 near I-90 in Elgin where the business has operated for the past 20 years. It’s about half the size of the planned building.
“We are just maxed out in our building that we are at now,” Cargo President Jeff Iden said. “We’re going to add some more machinery.”
The expansion will add more than 20 jobs for a total of 45 employees at the new location. Tollway accessibility also will allow the company to keep its current employees who commute from all over the region, Iden said.
“We want to stay by the highway,” Iden said. “If you go out to Randall Road, it’s quite expensive and congested. Huntley is a growing area. It’s a great town and it’s got a lot to offer for us.”
Land costs in Huntley are 40 percent less than along the Randall Road corridor, he added.
The manufacturer will be purchasing 2.4 acres from Reiche Construction, Inc., of Wauconda, which also will build Cargo’s 40,000-square-foot facility starting next spring. The business is expected to open Aug. 1.
The Huntley village board this week signed off on private activity or industrial revenue bonds for Cargo to be able to borrow up to $3.3 million from American Community Bank & Trust to finance the land purchase and construction.
Huntley has grown from a community of little more than 5,000 people in 2000 to a population of just less than 25,000 today. Cargo is the seventh major company to move its operations to Huntley within the last two years, officials said.
Interest in Huntley’s industrial park has been growing, partly due to the new interchange, said Victor Narusis, the village’s business recruitment coordinator.
The roughly 200-acre Huntley Corporate Park stretches for about a mile and a half along I-90, just west of Route 47. Part of the attraction for businesses is a vast majority of the lots are visible from the tollway, Narusis said.
About 80 percent of the park is vacant land with only about a half dozen buildings on site. The park’s largest employer is Weber-Stephen Products Co., manufacturer of Weber Grills and accessories, employing more than 200 people.
Narusis said the village has only one vacant building of any significant size — a 55,000-square-foot building located at the entrance to the corporate park. It is owned by Illinois Tool Works, which plans to sell the building.
Narusis said officials are in talks with several other businesses interested in locating within the industrial park, yet the village doesn’t have any vacant buildings they can move right into.
“It’s not a bad problem to have,” he said. “We are very much poised for the future. We are trying to bring more retail/industrial (businesses). We want to create equal opportunities for people to work and shop here.”