sept-2017

170 171 AT A GLANCE CREST HILL, ILLINOIS WHAT: Up-and-coming city on historic Route 66. Population approx. 20,500 WHERE: Will County, Illinois WEBSITE: www.cityofcresthill.com Crest Hill, CREST HILL, ILLINOIS CELEBRATING GROWTH C ue the applause! It’s every growing city’s dream to have a mega business come knock- ing and decide to put down roots in the community. That’s exactly what happened in Crest Hill, Illinois in the summer of 2017, when Amazon–yes, ‘that’ Amazon– announced it will be taking over a 438,000-sq.-ft. warehouse site in the Crest Hill Business Park. It means em- ployment for seve al hundr d people, plus several hundred more jobs during the peak hol- iday seasons - a huge economic boost for the city. Scott McMaster, Crest Hill’s Economic Development Manag- er, has been working diligently to promote the city’s assets to businesses near and far, and his determination and drive is paying off. Amazon’s target opening date is mid-October, and McMaster is thrilled with this latest coup, “We are kind of Illinois an underdog here in Will County, just outside of Chicago. There are bigger municipalities like Joliet and Romeoville and Plainfield that Amazon could have gone to, but they came to us, and we’re excited to have them.” Why choose Crest Hill? The location and added infrastructure improvements to the site were a big draw. The building was al- ready constructed on spec, and the city worked with the develop- er to put in another road that di- verted traffic away from residential areas and rerout- ed it out to an easier, quicker path to Interstates 55 and 80. The proximity to Amazon’s other distribution sites and sort centers in Joliet, Aurora, Romeoville, and Monee is anoth- er benefit. “We did it incentive free,” McMaster says. “That was a big deal for us, especially when other municipalities were giving away millions of dollars.We didn’t do a thing and Amazon was fine with