Last week, the Southland Development Authority held a bus tour to highlight its work as "a non-profit business organization designed to grow the economy of the South Suburbs."
Participants could board the bus at 118 N. Clark St. in the Loop, or 14829 Dixie Highway in Harvey. The topics discussed included housing, commercial, industrial, and grocery store development, including transit-oriented development.
One of the first stops on the tour was the Amazon facility in Harvey. SDA CEO Bo Kemp explained that while Amazon has about a million square feet of space, workforce housing is not available. The development authority is using HB1377 and other legislation to allow them to play a role in developing workforce housing directly across the street.
Kemp further explained that upgrades to sustainable transportation infrastructure are needed in the area. "As you'll see, there's no sidewalks right there," he said during the tour. "Previously, there hadn't even been a shelter for the buses, so people would actually come out here and wait for their buses."
Kemp explained that Amazon investments typically follow the EJ and J rail lines. "60 percent, almost two thirds, of every single container that you see on a boat, on a rail or anything, actually comes through the city of Chicago or through the south suburbs," he said. "Basically, about 30 percent goes through New Orleans in the south. The rest comes through here, whether it hits New Mexico, Canada or the United States. That's why all the rails here stop you whenever you're driving around, most of the time it takes two and a half days to get here by rail. It takes two and a half days to get through Chicago."
The speakers on the bus also talked about the transit situation in Harvey. The town is a hub for the Pace bus system, with more bus traffic than anywhere else in the south suburbs. He said the Pace Harvey Transportation Center is being replaced, and the adjacent the Metra Harvey Station is being modernized.
"Transit-oriented development is what you're seeing all around you," said SDA Director of Municipal Economic Development Nicholas Greifer during the tour. "We're going to see the Harvey lofts. It's a five story building that I worked on with a really experienced private developer, Pivotal Realty partners... You'll see in minutes, a beautiful new building. The exterior is basically 100 percent done, and now they're working on the interior... The combination of the Harvey lofts plus the Metra station that's being redeveloped, those two things will change the future of Harvey's downtown."
During the tour, commercial real estate attorney Jay S. Readey said that "climate migration" will bring more people to the Chicago area than the 20th Century Great Migration, which brought African Americans here from the rural South. "You have to ask, Where are you going to put those people?" he said. "And Harvey is a perfect answer. It's an example of many of the other places that were hit hard by the heart the housing crash in 2008 and have had trouble coming back."
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