Joliet's Abandoned Steel Mill Means Hundreds Of New Jobs: O'Dekirk

JOLIET, IL — Back in the summer of 1979, The New York Times published a devastating article about Joliet's blue-collar economy, revealing that of the two U.S. Steel plants in the country that were being closed, one was in Joliet, impacting 600 jobs.

On Wednesday afternoon, at the 176 West banquet hall, Joliet Mayor Bob O'Dekirk revealed during his annual state of the city speech that the long-abandoned U.S. Steel property near Collins Street is coming back to life as part of an agreement with Argonne National Laboratory, the U.S. Department of Energy and other entities.

"They're currently working through the environmental issues on the site, they're working with U.S. Steel," O'Dekirk told the crowd of 350 gathered to hear his presentation on the current state of Joliet. "The idea is to implement advanced technology for plastics and metals. They want to recycle electric car batteries or vehicle batteries, and they want to reprocess automotive plastics on the site."

The U.S. Steel site encompasses 57 acres, O'Dekirk explained.

"It's been abandoned. Some of the buildings on the site they plan on tearing down, others will remain standing and be refitted. They plan on repairing the rail access to the site and the Collins Street entrances. They're also looking at other possibilities, which include exploring solar and data center opportunities at the site."

About two months ago, O'Dekirk said, he and Joliet City Manager Jim Capparelli took a day trip to Pittsburgh and met with company executives at U.S. Steel "and emphasized how important this was to the redevelopment of Joliet, to the east side of Joliet and to the region. And, quite frankly, I think we got through. I think U.S. Steel is committed to seeing this through.

"This is a great project for Joliet," O'Dekirk assured everyone in attendance. O'Dekirk said it would be "high-paid jobs, green jobs. This is going to ease the burden on the local landfills and again, we're talking about green recyclable energy, green recyclable jobs. So we have the support of Governor Pritzker in Springfield."

In closing, O'Dekirk said, "It's a big announcement, something the city has pursued for many, many years. I'm happy to talk about that moving forward, as well as the other new things happening in our city."

Afterward, Capparelli told Joliet Patch and another news outlet that the car batteries would be broken down and recycled into components at the former U.S. Steel site.

"There will be hundreds of jobs, so it's great for Joliet," Capparelli explained.

He said that a private company would be purchasing the U.S. Steel property and then working with Argonne, the U.S. Department of Energy and the University of Chicago "will use that as a test bed. So it's a very green project. They hope to have a solar farm."