Business View Civil Municipal - Sept 2023

134 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL VOLUME 4, ISSUE 9 the outreach operations of our staff, in the last ten years, we have been very successful in attracting the business development community so that they’re interested in coming here. We’ve also had some very successful residential developments that fill up quickly. And we’ve been in a position to take advantage of those opportunities because we’ve laid the groundwork and done the homework. We have an excellent reputation in the development community – people get their approvals when they need them. I’ve heard again and again that we get things done.” Today, Warrenville is a dynamic 5.5-square- mile suburban community nestled in the center of a research and development corridor that runs along Interstate 88 through DuPage County. Its population of 13,553 allows it to maintain its small-town feel and still have the advantage of drawing upon a diversified tax base to ease the financial burden of its residential property owners. The city’s largest employer, and a major source of property tax revenue since its construction in the late 1980s, is Cantera, a commercial city within a city, built on the former grounds of a 650-acre limestone quarry. Cantera is home to three hotels, three banks, many restaurants, a family entertainment center, movie theaters, retail stores, daycare centers, a 100,000-square-foot fitness club, two residential complexes, and numerous corporate offices – including BP America, EN Engineering, and Exelon Nuclear, among others. And there’s room for more growth and innovation. “Traditionally, the focus on that area has been on corporate headquarters and office destinations but, like the rest of the country, we’re experiencing the challenges with office development, so we’ve expanded the potential for that area to accommodate additional uses,” Brummel says. “It’s got great infrastructure, beautiful buildings, and as we look to occupy those spaces, certainly we’re open to future office uses, but as that potential may be limited, we’re looking at other possibilities such as medical, educational, recreational, etc. As a city, we are looking to figure out a plan for how to occupy those spaces; I think that will be our next focus in terms of planning.” “The Cantera area regulations occurred 30 years ago and the zoning for that type of area can be a little complicated, but with our customer focus we want to find a way to make it more accommodating to help those developers that want to locate there. And we have tools in place that will help them do that,” he elaborates. Growth expands to other parts of the city Other growth in Warrenville includes new developments in the southwest part of the city. “In 2016, we put together the southwest district plan that outlined a number of ideas and planning initiatives that the city wanted to see in that area,” says