NorthPoint Celebrates 'Superlative' Construction Year In Joliet

JOLIET, IL — A mammoth construction project that will take at least 10 years to build is now well underway along Joliet's southern corridor. NorthPoint Development has already created 3.6 million square feet of commercial warehouse and distribution space along Route 53 between Noel and Millsdale Roads.

On many days this summer, at least 700 union construction workers were on site at NorthPoint's future Third Coast Intermodal Hub building new roads, erecting buildings, planting trees and shrubs, creating recreational fishing ponds and paving asphalt for the long bicycle trails along Compass Boulevard.

"All buildings here will be built union," vowed Patrick Robinson, a vice president with Kansas-based NorthPoint Development. "At peak, some days, we have had 700 construction workers. You can go from 200 to 700 people. We've had a wonderful relationship with the unions and all the building trades have been extremely cooperative."

Last week, about 200 contractors were on the construction site.

NorthPoint intends to build a staggering 33 commercial buildings over the next 10 to 15 years for its new Third Coast Intermodal Hub, which will be built on both sides of Route 53.

NorthPoint executives told Joliet Patch's editor that they now have access or control of roughly 4,000 acres in the Joliet and Will County region. NorthPoint intends to begin construction on the infrastructure east of Route 53 in 2024.

Future buildings for Joliet's Third Coast Intermodal Hub will range in size from 250,000 square foot to 1 million, NorthPoint's executives said. Building two, which is finished, is the biggest in the project at more than 1.4 million square feet.

Target has signed a lease agreement to use it, NorthPoint executives revealed last week.

Of the three giant warehouse and distribution buildings built in 2023, building 1, which is now available for lease, consists of 1,056,353 square feet of commercial space.

Building 2, which Target is taking, has 1,426,440 square feet. Building 3, which is also available for lease, has 1,139,153 square feet.

Robinson said that NorthPoint is hoping to build another two to three more buildings in 2024, with one being a cold storage facility.

"I would think that we would start three buildings. We're always going to have something going on," Robinson told Joliet Patch's editor. "We're always going to be asking for a (building) permit with the city of Joliet."

Plans to create a closed-loop bridge to divert semi-trailer traffic away from Route 53 between Joliet and Elwood have not started yet.

"I anticipate a permit sometime in 2024," Robinson predicted. "Our hope for next year, east of Route 53, is to start the infrastructure."

For the past several years, before the construction began, NorthPoint's proposed development turned into one of the area's biggest controversies. Hundreds of people from the Elwood and Manhattan areas flooded government meetings and gymnasiums, imploring their elected officials to reject NorthPoint's mega-development plans for their area.

The surrounding homeowners scored a major victory when Elwood rejected plans to build NorthPoint, but Elwood's rejection did not flip the kill switch. Instead, NorthPoint representatives approached the city of Joliet and drew a positive response from several officials including Mayor Bob O'Dekirk, interim city manager Steve Jones and City Councilman Pat Mudron.

In a November 2021 vote of 6-2, the Joliet Council approved annexation plans to allow NorthPoint to proceed along the city's southern boundary near the Stone City VFW Hall. Only Bettye Gavin and Mike Turk voted against it. NorthPoint Joliet was endorsed by U.S. Senator Dick Durbin, Congressman Bobby Rush, Congresswoman Robin Kelly and Congressman Adam Kinzinger.

By the summer of 2022, Joliet Patch interviewed several of the homeowners along Noel Road who watched from their backyards as dozens of bulldozers and heavy earth-moving machinery began the dirt work necessary before NorthPoint's building construction began in 2023.

As 2023 draws to a close, the Elwood area homeowners s can now look out their windows and watch NorthPoint's Third Coast Intermodal Hub taking shape, with three new buildings totaling more than 3.6 square feet already built.

"I think we have a civil relationship with one another," Robinson remarked.

Robinson said that NorthPoint's immediate construction plans to build the cold storage facility are going before the Joliet City Council shortly. An undisclosed company has signed a confidentiality agreement to occupy the cold storage facility, and after Joliet approves the project, Robinson said he could disclose the company's identity.

Overall, Kansas-based NorthPoint is extremely pleased with its build out in Joliet so far.

"This was a great year for us out here," Robinson said. "We've added 3.6 million square feet in a year and a half, with the economy the way it is. It takes something to pull this off. I would put it more on the superlative side for this level of development to occur.

"It takes a village to get this done."

Related Joliet Patch NorthPoint Coverage:

Controversial Joliet Development Underway: 'We Can't Stop It'

Joliet Votes For NorthPoint Once Again: 2022 Construction Nears

NorthPoint Is Coming: Joliet Council Votes 6-2