EAST CHICAGO | A manufacturer will hire as many as 510 workers at an average salary of $55,000 a year when it relocates to East Chicago.
An unnamed company from Chicago's western suburbs plans to relocate from Illinois to the East Chicago Enterprise Center at 4407 Railroad Ave. The manufacturer will invest nearly $50 million in the city, said Karen Lauerman, president and CEO of the Lake County Economic Alliance.
Lauerman said the name of the company could not be revealed because of financial incentives that are still pending, but it should be identified soon.
The manufacturer employs around 260 full-time workers in Illinois, and plans to hire an additional 350 workers for its larger East Chicago facility by 2022, Lauerman said. The company will offer current workers the opportunity to relocate, but many may choose not to because of the distance of the commute.
An estimated 510 jobs, including production workers and managers, will pay an average salary of $55,000 a year, not including benefits like health insurance. The investment also will result in construction jobs, since the company will spend about $8 million to renovate a 150,000-square-foot space that had been home to a train car manufacturer but which has been vacant for about seven years.
"It was a longtime plant for the making of tanks and recently has been used somewhat, but now it's going to be bought entirely," East Chicago City Planner Richard Morrisoe said.
The company will spend around $16 million to buy the property, and pump another $15 million into installing new operating equipment. The company has been constrained in its current location and chose to expand in Northwest Indiana because of the lower cost of doing business.
"It's a pretty big deal," East Chicago Plan Commission President Valeriano Gomez said. "I know the mayor has made it a priority. In East Chicago and Hammond and all the lakeshore we have these old manufacturing buildings where companies moved out, and it's obviously good to bring one back with jobs."
The jobs are skilled, and East Chicago residents will be able to sign up for a program at Ivy Tech to qualify for them, Gomez said. The company hopes to have its East Chicago operation up and running by the end of the year, and hire an additional 275 workers in 2017.
East Chicago, the Indiana Economic Development Corp. and the Northwest Indiana Regional Development Authority all plan to give the company incentives.
The East Chicago Plan Commission voted unanimously Monday to give preliminary approval to the project, which will proceed to the City Council next week.