Ketone Partners sells 36-acre land site in Joliet, IL

JOLIET, IL (October 17, 2017) – Ketone Partners (Ketone) is pleased to announce the recent sale of a land site at the corner of Route 6 & Houbolt Road in Joliet, IL.

Ketone sold the 35.65-acre land site to First Industrial Realty Trust, Inc. (First Industrial). NAI Hiffman’s Eric Tresslar and Steve Connolly represented Ketone Partners and First Industrial in the transaction. First Industrial plans to develop a 355,199 square-foot speculative industrial building on the site. The land is located in an industrial logistics center featuring excellent access to I-80 and I-55 and frontage on Route 6 and Houbolt Road.

Ketone Partners purchased the overall 262-acre property in March 2016 from a California-based pension fund advisor. The site was mined for sand and gravel in the 1930s and left in a condition that was challenging to develop due to unconsolidated tailings from the mining operations, underlying bedrock at varying elevations and significant topography change throughout the property. Ketone recognized an opportunity to re-evaluate the proposed use of the site and generated a site plan that is consistent with the current real estate market conditions while simultaneously taking advantage of the connection to the Des Plaines River where it plans to develop a 40-acre port and marine terminal.

“Our Joliet project is a great example of how months of hard work and creative thinking can transform a challenging piece of land into a successful real estate development,” said Kyle Schuhmacher, president of Ketone Partners. “We assembled a great team of engineers and subcontractors that helped turn the site challenges into opportunities.”

After this recent sale, and the sale of 75 acres to The Opus Group in March of this year, Ketone retains 151 acres for future development. The remaining acreage will include a 40-acre port and marine terminal on the Des Plaines River, additional land for industrial development and may facilitate a travel plaza adjacent to the planned bridge connecting I-80 to the Centerpoint Intermodal Center.

“This is an exciting project for us. We enjoyed working with Opus and First Industrial on these first two transactions and are excited to have retained a large amount of acreage for future development of our own,” said Jennifer Wagner, vice president of Ketone Partners. “We look forward to completing the development of the site into a state-of-the-art logistics and port facility.”

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