Joliet has annexed land that includes the Will County Public Safety Complex, the central location for sheriff’s police.
The county campus, which also includes an animal control center and transportation facility, was annexed to connect Joliet to a site for future industrial development.
The City Council approved of annexing 40 acres at 16911 W. Laraway Road on May 17 without discussion. The land is at the corner of Laraway and Manhattan Road (also Route 52).
Joliet wanted the land to provide contiguity between the city and an area west of Manhattan Road that could be developed in the future for industrial use.
“We had some developers look at it,” Planning Director James Torri said Friday. “Because they couldn’t find contiguity for it, they just moved on.”
Developers typically annex unincorporated land to the nearest municipality in order to get access to water and sewer services. But land must be adjacent to municipal borders to be annexed.
Torri said there are no developers talking with the city about the site now, but city officials want to be able to provide contiguity to the site for the time when another developer is interested.
Joliet already provides water and sewer services to the county complex even though it was not in the city. The provision of city services was provided by an intergovernmental agreement made in 2018 as the county was renovating its facilities on the site.
The agreement between the city and county also provided for the campus to be annexed to Joliet if the city had an interest in annexing land around it.
Source: The Daily Chronicle
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