Ikea, Mars Wrigley and more building in Joliet

JOLIET – A curious sight on the new construction skyline in Joliet is the 115-foot-high racking system rising above the Ikea distribution center.

Passers-by on Laraway Road might not help but notice the rows and rows of blue steel.

It's a glimpse – even if from a distance – of the inner workings of the 1.25 million-square-foot distribution center scheduled to open sometime in spring 2018.

“It’s actually a rack-supported structure. That’s why they have to build it first before they build around it,” Ikea spokesman Joseph Roth said.

Eventually the racking system will be enclosed behind insulated steel walls, painted white and looking a bit different, but not much different, from the building around it.

Once functional, the giant racking system will operate without light with huge cranes moving along a couple dozen aisles. It will be an automated system that selects from thousands of Ikea products and takes them to a lower level. Goods then will be moved outside what’s called the high bay to workers who will load them onto trucks headed for company stores.

“It’s not air-conditioned,” Roth said of the high bay. “There are no lights. But that’s not unique to Joliet for us. That’s how most Ikea distribution centers are – at least the new ones.”

The high bay is one of three buildings that make up the Ikea distribution center. The others will be illuminated.

The Joliet facility will be the sixth Ikea-owned and operated distribution center in the U.S.

Kai Pflederer, on-site assistant project manager for Gray Construction, the general contractor on the project, said he got a sense of the size of the main bay when driving back to the site and seeing it from a distance.

“It’s kind of a unique project in that the high bay is being built in sections,” Pflederer said. “Most warehouses would be a similar footprint. You don’t have these different elevations of buildings.”

Ikea will employ between 100 and 125 people at the Joliet facility.

The neighborhood

The Ikea distribution center is the last project in the Laraway Crossings Business Park, which also is home to two Amazon.com fulfillment centers and the Cadence Premier Logistics corporate headquarters and trucking operation.

But the Ikea project now under construction might not be the last.

Ikea has acquired adjacent property to someday build a twin facility, including the high bay, that would match the one being built now. The company, however, has not announced a timetable for building the next facility.

Meanwhile, DHL Supply Chain is building a 1 million-square-foot speculative building nearby on Laraway Road at Rowell Avenue. That project is scheduled for completion in September.

A less conspicuous construction project is underway a bit up the road on Rowell Avenue, where excavation has started for the next Laraway School.

The school is moving from its present site at 275 W. Laraway Road mainly to get away from the large amount of semitrailer traffic going to and from CenterPoint Intermodal Center –
Joliet.

While the school won’t be far from the newest warehouses, Laraway School District 70C Superintendent Joe Salmieri said the district is confident that it has found a spot away from the truck paths.

Signs already have gone up to prevent truck traffic up Rowell Avenue, a narrow, two-lane road that would seem to be an unlikely truck route. The Ikea project is designed to send traffic in other directions.

The school also is protected by a small bridge on Rowell Avenue with a weight limit that won’t support truck traffic, Salmieri said.

Salmieri said the school has assurances from the city and Joliet Township that the weight limit will be enforced if needed. The school district also is working on an intergovernmental agreement with the city to maintain truck restrictions in the future.

Mars Wrigley status

The Ikea and DHL buildings are among about a dozen industrial projects recently completed or under construction in the southeast section of Joliet, said David Mackley, the city’s director of inspections.

The Ikea building might be the most noticeable, Mackley said, but it is not the only project of its scope in the area.

Mars Wrigley has begun stocking its 1.4-million-square-foot distribution building in CenterPoint Intermodal Center – Joliet.

“When you go into that building, it smells like mint because of all the gum in there,” Mackley said.

Temperature is strictly regulated in the building for the sake of food preservation and so as not to blend flavors between Wrigley gum and Mars chocolate bars.

“They have a higher rate of air changes in there to keep that mint smell under control so it does not penetrate other products,” Mackley said.