Brewster Creek Business Park

Featured Property: Brewster Creek Business Park

Located in the DuPage County portion of the Village of Bartlett, Brewster Creek Business Park is a former gravel quarry turned growing business park developed through a partnership between the Village of Bartlett and Elmhurst-Chicago Stone Company. 

Currently home to 90 businesses many of which reside within industrial condominium units in addition to the free-standing buildings, Brewster Creek will have 40 buildings totaling four million square feet with the recent completion of two more in recent months.

Industrial real estate developers Exeter Property Group, Ridge Development and G4 Development have recently completed speculative buildings, and Village economic development staff is partnering with the brokers in an effort to attract more quality tenants to Brewster Creek.  

Emerging Food Cluster

Food giant Greco & Sons was the first major food distributor to locate in Brewster Creek Business Park, followed by Get Fresh Produce, Rana Meal Solutions, Cheese Merchants of America and candy packager creative werks in the following years. Thermo Fisher Scientific tests food safety in their Brewster Creek location. Each of these companies found Brewster Creek’s available reasonably priced land, DuPage County taxes, access to a strong workforce and proximity to State highways ideal for their Chicago area location.

Together, these businesses employ well over 1,000 and provide high-quality food products to many restaurants, grocery stores and other clients throughout the Midwest and the country.

German High-Tech Precision Cluster

Bartlett’s pro-business attitude has also attracted several high-precision German-based advanced manufacturers including Herrmann Ultrasonics, Wittenstein, Bremskerl and BBS Automation in recent years. With a newly formed relationship with the German-American Chamber of Commerce, Bartlett has welcomed these companies with open arms in a continuing effort to strengthen the Village’s tax base and increase foreign direct investment in DuPage County.  

Automotive Cluster

Midwest Molding, Bremskerl, Winhere Brake Parts and Auto Truck are four Brewster Creek businesses in the auto supply chain. With Winhere Brake Parts relocating to Bartlett in early 2017, these companies have found their Bartlett location ideal to attract and retain a high quality workforce thanks to local workforce development programs.  

Strong Workforce

Another competitive advantage of Brewster Creek is that innovative businesses have found the Bartlett area’s talented workforce to possess the training, education and skills to help their companies grow and prosper. The Village has partnered with local workforce development organizations including the Chicago Cook Workforce Partnership, Elgin Community College’s Workforce Development program and the recently-launched Workforce Development Center in neighboring Hanover Park.  

Village Staff assists companies with meeting with one or more workforce development partners to help facilitate the recruiting and hiring of the workers whether entry-level, technically skilled or management professionals.  

Open to the Public

You can board your dog, bring your pet to the veterinarian, learn self-defense and improve your fitness in Brewster Creek Business Park. Although most of the 90 businesses in Brewster Creek Business Park are wholesalers, contractor offices, manufacturers and other B-to-B businesses, Bark Avenue Daycamp, Bartlett Animal Hospital, Xtreme Training Academy and Frontier Fitness are open to the public in Bartlett’s premier business park.

Brewster Creek Business Park List

The list of businesses located in Brewster Creek continues to grow year after year, and should continue to expand in 2017 and beyond as the Chicago area industrial market continues growing.  From a logistics and distribution standpoint, Brewster Creek is ideally positioned for growing companies to serve their customers more efficiently while enjoying an attractive and safe setting for their employees, customers and vendors.   

Click here for the 2017 list.   

New Buildings and Available Space

Contact Tony Fradin at (630) 837-0800 or tfradin@vbartlett.org to discuss how your client or your own business can become part of this strong and diverse business park or for a personal tour of Brewster Creek Business Park.  

Developers to build warehouse in Bartlett amid strong market

By: Ryan Ori, Crain’s Chicago Business – Ridge Development plans to build a 271,200-square-foot warehouse in Bartlett, following one of the best years ever for local industrial landlords. Chicago-based Ridge and investment partner Diamond Realty Investments plan to break ground this month on the warehouse at 1331-1337 Schiferl Road in Brewster Creek Business Park in the western suburb, according to Ridge.

The Ridge venture is building the warehouse on speculation, or spec, without any commitments from tenants, and it will be completed in September, said Ridge Senior Vice President Darcie Fankhauser. Ridge hopes to fill the building with one or two tenants, but it can accommodate as many as four, she said. “There’s a lack of supply from 100,000 to 300,000 square feet in that area, north DuPage County,” Fankhauser said. “We’ve been seeing a decent amount of interest considering it’s early in the year and we haven’t even started digging.” Diamond is the real estate investment arm of Japan’s Mitsubishi Corp. Ridge is the industrial development arm of Houston-based Transwestern Development. This is their first project together. The venture bought the 14.2-acre development site from Elmhurst-Chicago Stone for almost $2.6 million on Jan. 19, according to DuPage County records. Brewster Creek Business Park is just east of State Route 59, accessible to interstates 290 and 355. Building on spec is riskier than developing a building that has been pre-leased, but it’s not uncommon when it comes to industrial development, especially in the current market. The Chicago-area industrial vacancy rate fell to its lowest level since 2001 at the end of 2015. In another sign of the industrial market’s strength, sales volume in the area topped $4 billion in 2015, an all-time high, according to New York-based research firm Real Capital Analytics. Developers completed 8.4 million square feet of spec industrial projects in last year, the most since spec development totaled 13.4 million square feet in 2008, according to Seattle-based Colliers International. “Vacancy is the lowest it’s been in years, which helps support the numbers for doing new development,” Fankhauser said. “Developers have been cognizant about getting too far out ahead of their skis. Development in this cycle has been pretty disciplined, and demand has been strong.” Ridge already has capitalized on strong industrial demand, completing a 1.7 million-square-foot facility for French tire manufacturer Michelin last year in Wilmington, near Joliet. It was the largest build-to-suit industrial development in the Chicago area since 2006. It is also seeking tenants to fill about 750,000 square feet it is developing on spec in Wilmington, Fankhauser said.  

Brewster Creek Business Park Continues Driving Economic Development in Bartlett

Home to 75 businesses housed in 35 buildings, the Village of Bartlett has a sophisticated network of connected businesses, suppliers, and associates in a specific field that are all located in the same geographical area, known as a business cluster. The Village of Bartlett is creating this type of occurrence at Brewster Creek Business Park, located just west of Route 59 along Stearns Road. Cheese Merchants of America recently relocated its highly successful business to Brewster Creek, joining Greco & Sons Foods, Rana Meal Solutions and Get Fresh Produce in the business park. Continue reading