The vibrancy of Downers Grove and Woodridge is hard to miss.
Billboards along criss-crossing highways put a spotlight on their office trade. Internationally renowned retailers based in those towns flash their wares. And job recruiting firms beckon potential employees with catchy come-ons.
Those passing by these locales, where sunlight dances off reflective glass towers housing some of the biggest names in corporate America, might credit a strong global economy.
But officials in both suburbs prefer to attribute the synergism to past insight over the effect O’Hare International Airport and transportation corridors would have on their communities and to hard work over decades to follow strategies that would create a greenhouse effect on their commercial, retail and industrial economies.
“Our spin is we are like an actor who is declared an overnight sensation by a critic who failed to recognize the star worked 20 years to get that way,” said Ken Rathje, planning services director for Downers Grove.
“The village government has been working seriously on creating a diverse economic entity of its own since the early 1970s by making valid land-use decisions, establishing certain standards and developing good working relationships with developers,” Rathje said.
Ditto for Woodridge.
“We experienced quite a growth boom right after Interstate Highway 355 was extended through the middle of the community in 1989,” said Staci Hulseberg, planning and development director for Woodridge. “We knew it was coming, so a comprehensive plan was laid out in 1985 and areas were designated for non-residential development, commercial, residential and retail growth.”
With three full interchanges off I-355, Woodridge’s growth has been non-stop, Hulseberg said. She offered this as evidence of growth: Only 459 people lived in 109 homes, with no non-residential development, on less than 1 square mile in 1959. Today 30,000 people live in more than 11,000 households across 8.5 square miles.
Woodridge has 16 shopping centers generating retail sales of $290 million in 1999. It holds 2.6 million square feet of commercial space and is developing a 400-acre “urban village” called Seven Bridges. Woodridge has more than 950 acres of commercial and industrial development.
“We are in the midst of a tremendous office boom,” Hulseberg said. “The Allstate development is a perfect example of it.”
The Fortune 500 company picked Woodridge for one of three client information centers it is building in the nation. Expected to open in September, the Allstate building is the fourth structure in the 28-acre Waterfall Glen Business Park southeast of the Lemont Road interchange at Interstate Highway 55.
Internationale Centre, south of I-355 and I-55, has added more than 1 million square feet of warehouse, office and light industrial business space in the last year, and more than 5 million since its annexation in 1989. Overall, Hulseberg said, 734,901 square feet of office space has been or is being developed.
MidPoint Corporate Center, a 17-acre campus at Janes Avenue and Center Drive, is expected to contain two to four buildings. Janes Avenue has become an attractive corridor for development, Hulseberg said, as two other office projects on Janes, north of 75th Street, are on tap.
Development is also taking root in Seven Bridges of Woodridge at 3550 Hobson Rd. The 400-acre development features a golf course, Seven Bridges Ice Arena, Edward Health and Fitness Center, two restaurants, the Signature Room banquet facility and Cinemark/3D IMAX Theater Complex. About 100 acres are earmarked for a hotel, office and other retail ventures.
Also in Woodridge, Home Depot moved into the former Builders Square in Centerpointe Shopping Center, 7200-7400 Woodward Ave., and was scheduled to open in June. Hulseberg said the village expects future retail and commercial development on land at the Boughton Road interchange off I-55.
Downers Grove, already home to 55 office buildings with 4.5 million square feet of space, has seen several Class A office structures rise along a major crossroad of commerce Rathje calls “The Northwest Territory.” The land, covering more than 1,000 acres, is north of Interstate Highway 88. It straddles I-355 and is intersected by Finley Road.
The recent developments, totaling 1.2 million square feet, include: Highland Landmark, a 42-acre campus east of the territory and southeast of the I-88/Highland Avenue interchange; The Corridors, an office park at Ogden Avenue and I-355; and Esplanade at Locust Point, a 100-acre campus at 2001 Butterfield Rd.
Tenants are starting to move into the third Highland Landmark building and a fourth building is planned, Rathje said. “The first two buildings were occupied within a year after they were built.”
The Corridors is planning a third structure. At Esplanade, blueprints for a fourth multi-story building at 3250 Lacey Rd were just approved. Gary Mori, a partner of the development company, Hamilton Partners, said the project took shape when Esplanade’s third building, which opened in May 1999, reached 70 percent occupancy.
Esplanade’s location, and its amenities–a daycare center, restaurant, heated garage, tennis courts, sports club, bank and a pond with swans–is a magnet for businesses, Mori said.
“Successful business people think this kind of environment is a good way to attract good people,” he said. “It’s also a good way to keep them.”
Downers Grove’s regional trade centers also attract consumers to places such as Main Street Square and Finley Square, which underwent a facade redesign and parking lot resurfacing and saw a Ruby Tuesday restaurant open in 1999. The village, with 25 shopping centers and 300 businesses downtown, all contributing to more than $1 billion in retail sales in 1999, has also been focusing on redevelopment corridors.
Steven Rockwell, Downers Grove’s economic development director, said the challenge facing the community is to preserve its economic blend and determine what it wants to look like over the next 75 years. Rockwell predicted a focus on the downtown and a commitment to turn corridors such as Ogden Avenue into showcases of rebirth and efficiency.
The village has added a hybrid to its mix: A Burpee Gardens store at 1100 Ogden Ave. by the nation’s largest catalog retailer of seed and garden products, W. Atlee Burpee & Co., of Warminster, Pa.
Burpee Gardens, which opened in April after a $2 million makeover of a shuttered storefront, has drawn about 1,200 customers a day, said Burpee spokesman Anita Alvare.
“It has exceeded our expectations,” said George Ball Jr., chairman and chief executive officer of Burpee, of the open-concept emporium offering plants, gardening gadgets, books, imported pottery, a computer bay, cafe and indoor lounge shaded by a ficus tree.
Ball, who lives in Glen Ellyn, said he picked the Ogden Avenue site for Burpee’s first retail laboratory store because his roots are in Chicago. Another reason, he said, is that the village lies amid working, middle-class gardeners and a prime cut of fast-growing suburbs.
“We looked at a lot of different sites, and this was by far the most attractive from the standpoint of location, value and cost relationship,” he said.
