By Roald Hasse
Kane County Chronicle
Published September 27, 2005

An 800-acre swath of farmland in West Chicago could have been either a rail yard or a race track, U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert said Monday.

Fortunately for West Chicago, it became neither, the Plano Republican stressed at ceremonies opening the DuPage National Technology Park. "It's not rocket science," Hastert said, then interjected: "Or, maybe it is."

The remarks drew laughs from an audience of more than 200 people - a cross-section of area, Illinois and federal officials, in addition to business and construction executives. It's a project that already has involved spending more than $50 million in federal and state funds on public improvements, including roads, curbs and ponds, Hastert said.

And while the park hasn't yielded the for-profit business activity for which it's been designed, Hastert predicted that will come in time.

He told why the land was set aside in the first place to be a high-technology research park. Although a NASCAR racetrack and an intermodal railroad switching yard had been proposed in the 1990s for the site that borders Kane County, Hastert and others had suggested that it become a technology park instead.

"We said, 'Let's look beyond the horizon,' " Hastert said. Officials of private developer CenterPoint Properties said plans are under way to build a 100,000-square-foot building for lease to Argonne National Laboratory and a 40,000-square-foot facility for other potential tenants.

CenterPoint also is near snaring a tenant for a 200,000-square-foot industrial building that would be built south of Fabyan Parkway, they said.

Hastert spoke Monday of the park's importance to West Chicago. He said the city lingered under a cloud because it also was home to federal Superfund environmental cleanup projects. More than 20 million square feet of soil containing low-level radioactive thorium tailings had to be removed from the city, Hastert said. The materials were a byproduct of manufacturing operations decades ago by the Lindsay Light and Chemical Co.

Today, a project of the DuPage park's size should go far to erase some of the images attached to West Chicago's name, Hastert said. Because the land is close to both the DuPage Airport and the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, it made sense to select an ambitious goal for the area, Hastert said.

Since 1998, the city, DuPage County, the state and the federal government have worked to create the park, which stretches south of Route 38 and across Fabyan Parkway, backing up to St. Charles, Geneva and Batavia.

It is on property owned by the DuPage Airport Authority. Hastert said the project has brought together people of various political stripes, committed to making it a reality. The goal is to create a research park that will hatch inventions that can be applied in business, Hastert said.

"This is a big tent philosophy," Hastert said, as he spoke under a giant tent set up for the event.

Before the ceremony, West Chicago Mayor Michael Fortner likened the DuPage National Technology Park to other such public-private partnerships. He mentioned the Science and Technology Center in Sandia Park, N.M., as an example of what the DuPage park might become.

Companies will be attracted to the new business park because they think "there's a synergy we can get by working closely with these public entities," Fortner said.

"A project like this is going to have more than just a local effect," Fortner added.

Jack Lavin, director of the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, said the state estimates that the park will generate more than 2,000 high-technology jobs and $500 million in annual wages when it becomes fully occupied.

"It's a tremendous shot in the arm for DuPage County and the state of Illinois," Lavin said.

DuPage Airport Authority Board Chairman Dan Goodwin said the next step is to attract tenants that specialize in high-technology pursuits.

"The parks of this type are very competitive," Goodwin said.

That competition is what prompted the DAA and the technical park's board to select Oak Brook-based CenterPoint Properties to be the park's private developer, Goodwin said. CenterPoint's other projects include such high-profile developments as the business park at the former Joliet military arsenal, he said.

Another private firm, AboveNet Inc., announced Monday that it has started to build a high-speed, fiber optic communications network at the DuPage tech park to connect such park users as universities and private firms.

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