For years, the roads that cut through Franklin Park’s Cullerton Industrial Area have been in poor shape.
“It’s almost hard to imagine, but these roads have been kind of like a war zone for almost the entire 10 years that we’ve been here,” said Richard Tetrault, president of Sureway Tool & Engineering, which has a 37,000 square foot facility on Melrose Avenue.
Tetrault says his business’ three trucks are in and out of his facility several times in the course of a day.
“So if you begin to multiply that by the number of other businesses, the deliveries on a daily basis and the products being moved in and out, there’s dozens — if not hundreds — of trucks moving in and out of our area,” Tetrault said. “It’s a significant load.”
That’s why Tetrault and other business owners in the area are looking forward to the completion of a $4.3 million renovation of the Cullerton Industrial Area that will include street reconstruction and sewer and drainage work. The project, which is already underway, is the first one in the county being partially funded by a $3 million loan from the BUILT in Cook program. (BUILT stands for Broadening Urban Investment to Leverage Transportation.)
“The Cullerton Avenue Industrial Area is home to 10 companies and employs more than 1,300 people,” said Cook County President Toni Preckwinkle at a ceremonial groundbreaking for the project Aug. 12. “We anticipate 133 new jobs will be created [during construction].”
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The Cullerton Street Industrial Area is located within the greater Franklin Park O’Hare Industrial Corridor and contains approximately 50 acres of land and generates an annual of over $1.6 million in tax revenue to local taxing bodies, according to Franklin Park officials.
“As you can see, it’s a busy business area,” said Franklin Park Village President Barrett Pedersen the day of the groundbreaking. “Businesses in this area not only ship products to Chicago and Cook County but they ship overseas and across the world.”
The roads in the Cullerton Street Industrial Area were originally built by a private developer as part of a subdivision in the 1960s. By the 1990s, the village took over ownership of the roads following a ruling in the Circuit Court of Cook County. According to a 2013 study from engineering firm Clark-Dietz commissioned by the village of Franklin Park, the industrial area’s roads were classified as “failed” due to all of the heavy truck traffic.
Tetrault says these poor road conditions have lead to embarrassment when international clients visit his Franklin Park facility. Pedersen added that the subpar roads have also led to trucks and their cargo being damaged and shipments getting delayed while traveling through the area.
To fix the roads, the village originally considered a plan estimated to cost $5.3 million without the BUILT funds. The village plan called for businesses in the Cullerton Industrial Area to be taxed at a higher rate to pay for the cost of improvements over a period of 20 years.
“When the businesses were presented with the staggering annual levy that they would have to pay under the original provisions of the contract, they asked that we go back to the drawing board — and if any of those business owners are here today, you know that I’m putting that politely,” Pedersen said.
The village came up with a revised plan after Cook County approved the village’s request for a low-interest $3 million loan through BUILT last November and the village won a $1.3 million grant from the Illinois Department of Transportation.
Businesses in the area are still helping to pay for the improvements with an extra tax, but the grant allowed the village to lower their extra tax rate to 4.2 percent. That rate is less than half of what the businesses were originally supposed to pay.
The village expects the project to be completed by next year.
Alex V. Hernandez is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.