The vacant acreage at 4400 Homerlee Avenue in East Chicago was considered an eyesore for many years, now the property has potential for The Missner Group and Realterm. The 14.5 acres are nestled between residential houses, warehouses, and transportation infrastructure.
The property was once the site of the Edward Valve Company. Now it’s the future of a 249,600 square foot building that will house 20 exterior docks, 35 trailer parking spaces, and 286 car parking spaces. The space is also divisible to 25,000 square feet units.
On Wednesday, Oct. 13, East Chicago and Lake County Economic Alliance officials met with The Missner Group and Realterm to celebrate the groundbreaking of the new construction site.
“I’d like to say thank you to The Missner Group and Realterm for their $19-$22 million investment in East Chicago - the first-panel building in the City of East Chicago in the modern era,” said Lake County Economic Alliance President and CEO Karen Lauerman. “This was home to manufacturing and industry, but as we all know, manufacturing and industry changed over the years, so remediation to the property was necessary. From my standpoint, we’ve not only brought in new development and developers, we’ve been able to remediat a site, repurpose the site, and bring that site to life for state of the art manufacturing or logistics to Northwest Indiana at a corner of East Chicago that has sat vacant for years.”
City officials, developers, brokers, and business leaders joined the celebration of development during the groundbreaking. East Chicago Chief of Staff Sandra Favela noted that Mayor Anthony Copeland and Councilwoman Monica Guzman Gonzalez live in the First District where the Homerlee Avenue property is located.
“This is a great day for East Chicago,” Favela said. “Thank you to Barry for investing and constructing a great facility. Barry, I hope you and your team continue to achieve your vision, to meet the highest possible standards and everything your company delivers for our communities.”
Favela thanked the companies for building a space that would attract tenants and help create jobs in East Chicago.
The Missner Group is a Chicago-based developer and builder of industrial properties similar to what will be built in East Chicago. The Missner Group CEO Barry Missner said the Homerlee Avenue project began about two years ago when the company started looking for industrial sites in Northwest Indiana.
“It’s an optimistic day. We’re seeing fruition in the seeds that we planted. It’s the birth of something new in this case; it’s a rebirth of an old, antiquated property,” Missner said. “We are excited about what the finished product will be: a Class A industrial building that will create jobs for construction and jobs for the tenants that will occupy the building.”
Missner thanked Realterm and the City of East Chicago for the work done to make the project possible. He also thanked the Lake County Economic Alliance for the guidance during the approval process.
“Without the support of East Chicago, there would be no project today,” Missner said. “We not only believe the project on Homerlee will be a great success for the developer in the community, but we are even more bullish on the Northwest Indiana market than we were when we started this project. We hope to continue our development efforts in Lake County.”
The Missner Group partnered with Realterm because the companies share similar views and values. Realterm is a transportation-focused investment manager and vertically integrated operator focused exclusively on investment in the industrial subsector, high flow through logistics real estate.
Realterm Vice President of Development Travis Westmoreland thanked The Missner Group for bringing the company’s attention to the project opportunity.
“The Homerlee project represents the first of four industrial warehouse and distribution facilities to cater to last-mile logistic operators,” Westmoreland said. “The Homerlee project logistics space is ideally suited for a range of last-mile logistic users.”
He also thanks the Lake County Economic Alliance and East Chicago officials.
For more information about the Lake County Economic Alliance, visit https://lcea.us/.
