By Kevin Haas
Rock River Current
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ROCKFORD — Developers are moving forward with plans to rehabilitate the former Rockford Products manufacturing site to attract a new business to the facility.
First Midwest Group plans more than $2.9 million worth of work that includes repairs to the existing building, demolition and environmental cleanup to ready the site for new use.
Under a redevelopment agreement unanimously approved by City Council last week, First Midwest Group would be reimbursed for the work with revenue coming from a tax-increment finance district that surrounds the property.
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TIF districts capture revenue that comes from increased property values into a special fund that can be used to pay for a variety of redevelopment costs. In this case, First Midwest would be refunded 100% of the increased revenue – or increment – it generates on site and at the neighboring DaVita kidney dialysis property.
“TIF can be and is a powerful redevelopment tool when used at the right time in the right set of circumstances, and we think we have that here,” said Karl Franzen, the city’s economic development director. “At the end of the day we’re driving private investment in the areas that we need it the most.”
Related: First Midwest Group preps former Kmart for redevelopment
The roughly 36-acre site includes a building that had a collapsing roof. Developers are demolishing the middle of the facility to create two functional buildings, Franzen said.
There is no end user of the site determined at this point. However, Franzen said it could be attractive to a logistics company because of its proximity to the Chicago-Rockford International Airport, one of the busiest in the country for cargo, and its access to rail.
“We would expect at the end of the day that this would be a multitenant (site) that focuses on logistics,” Franzen said.
Rockford Products, which incorporated in 1929 as Rockford Screw Products Co., was once one of the world’s largest manufacturers of fasteners and other industrial products. It employed hundreds in its heyday, but had fewer than 200 workers when it closed its doors for good in September 2016.
This article is by Kevin Haas. Email him at khaas@rockrivercurrent.com or follow him on Twitter at @KevinMHaas.