JOLIET, IL —During the same week Joliet learned that Dick’s Sporting Goods might relocate its store on Route 30 to a new location in Plainfield at The Boulevards, Joe Clement reminded the rest of Joliet’s City Council that economic development must be the city’s highest priority.
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In addition to the potential loss of Dick’s Sporting Goods when its lease expires, Joliet learned that Hawk Auto plans to move two of its dealerships, Cadillac and Volkswagen, to a new location in Plainfield at an 89-acre parcel on Route 59, just north of Rolf Road and the Plainsman Terrace subdivision.
And Joliet also missed out on attracting a Cooper’s Hawk winery, despite serious talk in recent years about building one in city of Joliet boundaries along Route 59 near Theodore Street in front of the former LA Fitness, now called Esporta Fitness.
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In March, Patch reported that a Cooper’s Hawk will be built in Plainfield, at The Boulevards.
In late March, Patch reported that an electric bike manufacturer is moving to Romeoville. Metalrays signed a lease on a 120,000-square-foot space on Southcreek Parkway where it will operate a facility that handles assembly and distribution of its bikes. Romeoville officials said the space is expected to be operational at the end of June.
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“I want to bring up economic development,” Clement remarked at the end of Tuesday night’s Joliet council meeting. “It was in the paper. It’s not good news. Dick’s and Hawk. I’m not blaming one person or a group of people. I’m just making my comments.
“We have to get ultra aggressive. It happened in the past. We can do it again. We cannot have businesses leaving … We can be reaching out to people like Cullinan (Properties) group and things going on with the (Louis) mall … and Harrah’s Casino.”
There are three options ahead, Clement predicted.
“Our budget, it’s very, very big, right? It’s $500 million I believe or a little less. That’s a big number … if we don’t have economic development, there’s two other options there. Raise taxes, which I’m not in favor for, or, this is serious stuff, and we do layoffs at the city of Joliet. That’s what we’re facing here. We have to get so serious at this. I think it’s very important and needs to be our number one on our priority.”
Following up on Clement’s comments, Councilman Larry Hug, who spearheads the city’s economic development committee, spoke up on the topic at Tuesday’s meeting.
“As far as Councilman Clement’s comments on economic development, I’m going to reserve final comments on it. I do not disagree with him. We’ve all talked about this already over the last several weeks, but what we’ve read in the paper, I’m looking into it. I know the mayor’s looking into it as is the city manager and what’ve read in the paper, may not be completely accurate and the whole story at least, I don’t know that for sure yet.
“But you’re right, and we all are on the same page. We’re going to be looking into this.”
Here’s a rundown of some of the rough news stories that Joliet City Council members have read about in recent weeks:
Joliet Losing Dick’s Sporting Goods To Plainfield: WJOL
Hawk Auto To Build New Plainfield Dealerships, Move From Joliet
Cooper’s Hawk In Talks To Open In Plainfield, Mayor Confirms
In the meantime, the city of Joliet website has posted 13 different 13 full-time job openings, including all three jobs in the city’s economic development department plus the new post of media engagement/director of communications, a newly created position that might pay a salary of nearly $178,000.
Two of Joliet’s three open economic development positions have been advertised since the end of November and early December without being filled by Joliet’s human resources department.
Last fall, Joliet Patch reported that after joining Joliet in October 2017, city human resources director Kathy Franson has received $54,900 in salary increases, boosting her original City Hall salary of $105,000 to $159,900 in 2023.
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