Covering the Land of Lincoln

Road expansion looks to grow businesses near Rockford airport

ROCKFORD – A more than $5.2 million expansion of Logistics Parkway to improve connectivity in the city’s global trade park near the Chicago Rockford International Airport will begin this year.

It is hoped the improvements will make it easier for trucks to reach companies located in the park and for them to ship goods out, said Karl Franzen, Rockford’s community and economic development director.

Franzen said the city had sought state grants to fund the project, but decided to put the project in the city’s Capital Improvement Program and go forward without grants when it became clear it would add costs by requiring new construction engineering.

Related:This one-block section of downtown Rockford could see a nearly $1 million upgrade

“Once we realized that was going to dramatically increase costs and that we needed to fulfill our obligations, we decided to pull the trigger,” Franzen said.

The more than half-mile extension of Logistics Parkway is called for in a 2013 development agreement with PCI Pharma Services, 4545 Assembly Drive, and a 2016 agreement with cold form fastener maker Rocknel Fasteners Inc., 5309 11th St., city officials said.

The project is expensive because it includes extending Logistics Parkway north from Milford Avenue to Samuelson Road, resurfacing Logistics Parkway from Samuelson Road to Airport Drive, and resurfacing Milford Avenue from Logistics Parkway to 11th Street. It also includes a 100-foot wide drainage ditch to alleviate flooding on trade park properties.

Rockford City Council awarded a $4.7 million construction contract to Northern Illinois Service Co. of Rockford. The project is being paid for from $1.5 million in tax increment financing generated by businesses in the trade park, $2.4 million in local capital improvement programming funds and $1 million from local water utility funds.

Extension of Logistics Parkway will replace a deteriorating private road that businesses in the area had been using with a public road that meets standards for truck traffic, City Engineer Timothy Hinkens said.

“It’s a major truck route for these guys and it should provide easier access to 11th Street for them,” Hinkens said.

Work is expected to begin in mid-August and be done in spring 2023, Hinkens said.

Rocknel Fastener, 5309 11th St., is seen on Tuesday, July 19, 2022, in Rockford.

The expansion will fulfill Rockford’s end of a development agreement reached in 2016 with Rocknel Fastener Inc., when the company embarked on a $2.1 million addition to its operations. The addition was billed as a project adding new full-time jobs at Rocknel, a company that employs 115 people and produces fasteners for the automotive industry, according to its website.

Another occupant of the trade park, PCI Pharma Services, celebrated a 30,000-square-foot addition in 2019 after growing its business nearly 400%. It employs nearly 300 people at Rockford, but it has two buildings in the trade park that until now have been separated.

Franzen said the new road will better connect the locations.

A Rockford Register Star reporter since 2005, Jeff Kolkey writes about city government, politics, trends in the Rockford region and more. He is a Rockford resident, a married father of two and a White Sox fan. He can be reached at (815) 987-1374, via email at [email protected] and on Twitter @jeffkolkey.

PCI Pharma Services, 4545 Assembly Drive, is seen on Tuesday, July 19, 2022, in Rockford.

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