


Gov. J.B. Pritzker desires to unload an deserted industrial website on Chicago’s decrease west aspect greatest often called a backdrop for the 2014 Hollywood blockbuster “Transformers: Age of Extinction.” The state will settle for bids this fall for Damen Silos at 2900 S. Damen Ave. alongside the South Department of the Chicago River, a 23.4-acre property additionally acquainted to drivers on the Stevenson Expressway for its towering outdated grain silos.
Officers stated promoting Damen Silos will relieve the state of a monetary burden, and a purchaser might remodel it into a knowledge middle, telecom facility, hashish enterprise or an industrial complicated, giving surrounding neighborhoods an financial carry.
“The sale of this surplus property will generate important financial alternatives in Chicago’s Decrease West Facet and McKinley Park communities whereas additionally saving the State the price of annual working bills,” stated Anthony Pascente, performing director of the state’s Central Administration Companies, in a ready assertion.
It will not be a simple property to unload. The state tried to public sale off Damen Silos in 2014, however officers ended up canceling the potential deal, in response to Mike Senner, an industrial skilled and government vice chairman at Colliers Worldwide.
“It was pulled as a result of the public sale had restricted participation,” he stated. “There have been considerations about the price of asbestos removing, the prices of demolition, the prices of constructing a sea wall and different environmental prices.”
However Damen Silos might appeal to extra bidders now than it did in 2014, Senner added. Previously eight years, builders crammed growth websites all through the Chicago space with new logistics and distribution warehouses as customers more and more purchased merchandise on-line, and few vacancies stay.
“The demand ought to be higher as a result of there’s such restricted provide,” he stated.
Excessive inflation, rate of interest hikes and different financial uncertainty within the first half of 2022 didn’t quiet Chicagoland’s logistics growth, in response to Colliers Worldwide. Product distributors occupied one other 23 million sq. toes, outstripping final yr’s record-breaking tempo, and sending the emptiness fee all the way down to 4.58%, a report low.
Promoting Damen Silos is a part of Pritzker’s initiative to rid the state’s actual property portfolio of properties both out of date or too costly to take care of. The administration sealed its most distinguished deal in that effort earlier in the summertime when Google agreed to purchase the James R. Thompson Middle, which state officers estimate will save taxpayers almost $1 billion over 30 years.
The Illinois Division of Transportation took over Damen Silos from a railroad almost a century in the past, finally utilizing it to combine street building supplies. However in 2005, division officers stated they’d no extra use for the property and transferred it to the state’s Central Administration Companies for disposal. By 2013, “Transformers” director Michael Bay was utilizing it to set off fiery explosions.
The state is promoting the property in “as-is” situation, and preliminary bids, which have to be a minimal of $3.25 million, are due by October 19. Officers will select the successful bid by November, in response to a advertising and marketing flyer from business actual property agency JLL.