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5/12/2020 |
Economy |
Crain's "Texas developer plans industrial park next to Joliet NASCAR track" |
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Hillwood Investment Properties has a deal to buy just over 82 acres from the stock car racing circuit and redevelop it with four warehouses. A Texas real estate firm would develop four industrial warehouses on more than 80 acres next to Chicagoland Speedway under a proposal before the Joliet Plan Commission.
In a deal that would allow to NASCAR to cash out on a portion of the land it owns at the Joliet racetrack, Dallas-based Hillwood Investment Properties would buy the land from the stock car racing circuit, which uses it for overflow parking, according to a statement from a city of Joliet spokesman.
The plan would pile on to an industrial development boom throughout the Chicago suburbs as the rise of online shopping fuels demand for warehouse space for retailers to store and distribute products. It's also part of a broader strategy by NASCAR to shore up its finances by selling off some of the real estate it owns around its racing venues. The circuit announced a partnership with Hillwood in March to pursue several deals like the one it is proposing in Joliet.
NASCAR last year bought Chicagoland Speedway and the 423 acres on which it sits as part of a $2 billion acquisition of publicly traded racetrack owner International Speedway Corp. The land sale to Hillwood would not impact the racing venue, Joliet Planning Director Michael Schwarz said in a statement. It's unclear whether Hillwood has lined up any users for its planned warehouses, and a spokeswoman for the company did not provide a comment on the firm's plans for the Joliet site. But it's far from alone in developing industrial properties as the local industrial vacancy rate hovers around its lowest mark since 2001 and the pool of users for such space grows.
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