Berlinsky Scrap Corp. may close

Berlinsky Scrap Corp., about 100 years old, and owned at one time by a mayor of Joliet, will close if a planned sale goes through.

The proposed conversion of scrapyard into a truck-and-warehouse operation also will require approval from the Joliet City Council. But the Zoning Board of Appeals last week voted to recommend approval of the special use permit and variance needed for the trucking operation.

“It’s time,” owner Ken Glassman said after the zoning board vote when asked why he was getting out of the scrap business. “We’ve been doing it for a long time.”

Glassman has been involved in the business since 1988.

Before that, his father, Herb Glassman, joined the late Mayor Maurice Berlinsky in 1971 as partners in Berlinsky Scrap Corp.

Berlinsky served three terms as mayor from 1963 to 1975.

Herb Glassman died in 2020, and the father and son considered back then leaving the business, Ken Glassman said.

“It was something that my father and I had talked about even before his passing when we were talking about his retirement,” Glassman said, noting that his father worked at the scrapyard until his death.

With his father’s passing, Glassman said, he feels it’s time “to move on to other adventures.”

Glassman was not sure what year Berlinsky Scrap Corp. opened but believes the Berlinsky family started the business in the early 1920s.

“I thank the community for so many years of their trust and business,” he said. “We’ve met a lot of nice people over the years.”

But before Berlinsky closes, American Property Investments will have to get approval for its plan.

There was some opposition at the zoning board meeting, where one neighbor raised questions and another said she was against the trucking operation.

“I’m definitely opposed. That’s too many trucks,” Donna Gonzalez said.

The buyer needs a zoning variance because it can put a trucking operation within 300 feet of a residential area. A special use permit is needed to put the truck operation in an I-2 general industrial district.

“How many more trucks are going to come there?” Gonzalez asked. “You’re going to come right down my street.”

The area is one of the older parts of the city where industrial use has co-existed with residences for decades.

The plan includes the sale of an existing warehouse at 220 Maple St., which in years back was a Sears appliance repair center, and land at 300 Maple Street. The scrapyard address is 212 Page Ave.

David Sweiss, an attorney for American Property Investments, said at the zoning board meeting that there would be about 10 trucks a day coming through the site and not more than one an hour.

“You’re going to have a lot less truck activity on the site,” Sweis said.

The site would be used for loading and unloading goods and not for long-term storage, he said.

He said berms and landscaping would be added, and the new operation would be “a far better use and a far better experience” for neighbors than it is now.

The zoning board voted, 4-1, to recommend the permit and variance. The plan is tentatively scheduled to go to City Council on Aug. 16.

“It may be the best case scenario for the residents,” board member Vincent Alessio said.

Existing warehouses on the site would be used for the new project, which would take about three years to fully develop, according to the city staff report.

Glassman said American Property Investments wants to complete the acquisition quickly if the plan gets the council’s approval. He would begin winding down operations at Berlinsky Scrap Corp., a process that could take six months.

“I would continue to process all the material as I normally would,” he said. “In one fashion or another, we have to get all the metal out.”

But the scrapyard could be closed to the public in four to six weeks after a council vote, if the plan gets approved, Glassman said.

Closing the business will be “a difficult thing to do,” Glassman said because of the 17 employees he has, several of whom have been there for more than 20 years.

“They are a great group of guys,” he said. “I like and respect them all.”