News & Events

National water and wastewater provider Aqua America has consolidated call center operations in the Greater Chicago community of Kankakee, Illinois. In September, the utility completed an expansion at the Downtown Kankakee Clock Tower Centre that doubled its space as well as local employment. This site has assumed the operations previously conducted at a now-vacated Pittsburgh call center.

Updated full-time employee counts for Kankakee County’s top 60 manufacturers, logistics firms and institutions were released today by the Economic Alliance of Kankakee County. The Alliance has been tracking FTE count since 2010, reporting annually for local and prospective industrial and commercial developers. “The employee numbers that we track represent 15,641 jobs, which is approximately 30 percent of our county’s total employment as of August 2016,” explained Alliance President and CEO Tim Nugent. “Preliminarily, we are showing year-over-year growth of 200 jobs. This is fairly consistent with the most recent Illinois Department of Employment Security (IDES) employment report, which indicated year-over-year growth of 500 jobs for Kankakee County.”

The Grundy Livingston Kankakee Workforce Board is soliciting proposals from organizations interested in providing professional services to conduct a Labor Shed Analysis for Grundy, Livingston and Kankakee Counties, which comprise Local Workforce Area #11 under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act. The Workforce Board anticipates awarding the contract at its December 20, 2016, meeting. Applicants must be prepared to deploy services immediately following the award of a contract/grant with final product to be presented at the March 21, 2017, Workforce Board meeting.

In July, Bradley’s Northfield Square Mall was sold to Namdar Realty Group for $9.6M. The privately held Great Neck, NY, real estate investment firm purchased the 527,000 SF shopping complex from C.W. Capital, Bethesda, MD. Spinoso Real Estate Group, North Syracuse, NY, formerly managed the property. Namdar reportedly will actively manage the Illinois Route 50 property with an eye toward significant repositioning.

Meijer, which operates 230 supercenters and grocery stores in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky and Wisconsin, has broken ground on its expansion in Bradley, Illinois. Part of the company’s plan to invest more than $400 million in nine new and 32 remodeled stores across the Midwest this year, the Grand Rapids, Michigan-based retailer is replacing the former Kmart Super Center site at 990 N. Kinzie Ave., starting with the special use-granted conversion of an adjacent commercial parcel with a vacated Taco Bell restaurant into a six-pump, 250,000SF gas station.

According to the recently released 2015 Metropolitan Area Export Overview, authored by the International Trade Administration, Kankakee County experienced a 74 percent increase in its world exports from 2014 to 2015. The year-over-year increase from $753M to $1.3B was the 16th greatest bump among metropolitan statistical areas nationwide. The bulk of the growth can be attributed to chemical manufacturing output, specifically products made here by Sun Chemical and Dow Chemical.

Among 3,141 counties nationwide, Kankakee County is ranked 307 in attracting and developing skilled labor, with 2011-15 skilled job growth of 8%, according to Economic Modeling Specialists International (EMSI)’s newly released Talent Attraction Scorecard.

Too often, students across Illinois have graduated from high school unprepared for their next step in life, whether it is college or career. Therefore, we applaud Governor Rauner and the General Assembly on the passage and signing of HB5729, the Postsecondary and Workforce Readiness Act (PWR) to address this need.

The Grundy Livingston Kankakee Workforce Board has sought and received a $500,000 Illinois Talent Pipeline Grant to provide on-the-job training for local dislocated workers in the process of securing new positions at CSL Behring Kankakee. The funds are provided by the Illinois Department of Commerce and funded under the federal Workforce Innovation & Opportunity Act.

The Economic Alliance, in partnership with the Village of Bourbonnais and Kankakee County Convention & Visitors Bureau, kicked off the 15th year of Chicago Bears Training Camp at Olivet Nazarene University with a Developers Day event on July 28. Attendees included Greater Chicago commercial and industrial real estate brokers, developers and manufacturers, along with local business leadership.