HUNTLEY – Few towns have moved from a local farming community into global economic development action faster than Huntley.
Consider this: Seventeen years ago, in 1998, Huntley was an obscure, local farming community of about 2,300 people.
Today, it is the home of one of the nation’s largest active senior adult communities and is a major player in attracting medical service, manufacturing, and high-tech research and development enterprises as part of the Chicago area’s “golden corridor” of economic and business expansion.
Huntley’s population is nearly 25,000, opening it to possible home-rule status in Illinois, and its population is predicted to jump to nearly 50,000 in the next 20 years, according to one major area planning agency.
Here are a few examples of what is happening just outside Sun City’s borders:
First, after 16 years standing vacant and dark, the former Duo-Fast office building near the northwest corner of the Jane Addams interstate tollway and Illinois Route 47 has come alive. Huntley has created a corporate park in this area. In the fall of 2014, Life Spine, a hi-tech research & development firm specializing in the design and construction of surgical tools and spinal implant devices, took over the 58,400-square-foot facility. Life Spine bought the building and property from Illinois Tool Works (ITW) last year. Life Spine chose Huntley over sites in Texas, Huntley officials said, “due to Huntley’s close proximity to O’Hare Airport, the newly completed interchange and excellent workforce.”
Life Spine maintains more than 60 patents in the medical devices field, with an additional 80 patents pending, a company spokesman said.
“This facility is our corporate headquarters, and we have manufacturing and distribution facilities at more than 50 global places,” said Eric Danielson, company spokesman. “We started in 2004 and have been expanding ever since.”
Duo-Fast manufactures and distributes tools and fasteners engineered for professional use on construction sites, industrial remodeling, in furniture shops, and in a wide variety of manufacturing operations. This building was constructed in 1997 and was occupied by Duo-Fast until 1998, when ITW bought the facility. ITW never occupied the structure, however.
Not far from the Life Spine facility is the relatively new 40,000-square-foot Cargo Equipment manufacturing and warehouse building in the Huntley Corporate Park. It is located close to James Dhamer Drive a short distance west of Route 47. Cargo Equipment is a manufacturer of load securement and tie-down equipment and supplies designed for industrial transportation activities.
Next, there is Centegra Health System, which is about halfway through with construction of its 128-bed, full-service hospital at Haligus and Reed Roads on the north edge of Huntley. It is scheduled for completion in 2016. This facility has created more than 800 construction jobs, village officials say, and is expected to bring 1,000 permanent jobs to Huntley. Plans also call for construction of a new 80,000-sq-foot medical office building anticipated to begin later this year.
The existing immediate care center will remain, according to a Centegra spokesperson, because the hospital’s emergency room and the care center provide different services and perform different functions.
Together with the existing Centegra fitness center complex at Haligus and Algonquin Roads, this property is anticipated to become one of the largest medical campuses in the Chicago suburbs. When the hospital opens in 2016, most Sun City illness and trauma patients will be transported there for medical services. The hospital recently received its cardiac care certification from state medical authorities, according to Huntley Fire Chief Keith Caudill.
Finally, Weber-Stephens Products Co., popularly known as Weber Grill, is completing work on the largest structure of any kind in Huntley. It is a 757,000-square-foot global distribution center on the south side of Freeman Road next to the Huntley Outlet Mall. It has dozens of cargo bays to serve the needs of the company’s growing global distribution operations. After this new center opens later this year, the present Weber distribution center behind the Jewel-Osco store in the Village Green Shopping Center will be relocated there and that building will be turned into an expanded manufacturing facility, creating 500 new jobs in Huntley.
Huntley officials say Weber chose the village over communities in Texas and Florida. These two facilities will increase Weber’s presence in Huntley to nearly 1.4 million square feet of space. Weber has manufactured its non-gas grills in Huntley since 1997.
Huntley anchors the western edge of the “Golden Corridor,” which extends along I-90 westward from Schaumburg.
