Shortly after withdrawing a petition to annex the 101-acre Baxter International headquarters site into Deerfield to build an industrial business park with more than a million square feet of warehouse space, Bridge Industrial representatives submitted a request for a preliminary meeting with Lake County’s Planning, Building and Development Department, according to its director Eric Waggoner.
The outreach, Waggoner said, requested a preliminary meeting, “to discuss an unincorporated development proposal for the property.” Lake County must hear out the request and begin its petition process, as Deerfield officials were required to, and the plan is to schedule a meeting with Bridge representatives in the coming weeks.
The move is the first sign that Bridge Industrial representatives plan to explore additional pathways to push through its plans for the property after thousands of residents in Deerfield and Riverwoods organized in opposition to the proposal.
“The department’s practice is to meet with a client first in order to understand the potential scope of a development project, prior to any formal application review stage,” Waggoner said.
The commercial real estate developer yanked its petition from consideration by the village of Deerfield on Wednesday, one day ahead a Plan Commission meeting where legal counsel retained by residents opposed to the project was set to present against the proposal.
Hundreds of residents of Deerfield and Riverwoods, including the Thorngate subdivision that would share a stoplight and intersection with the industrial business park, were expected to attend Thursday’s canceled Plan Commission meeting.
The meeting’s cancellation kicked off celebrations Wednesday night among residents who pooled resources to retain legal counsel to advocate against the project, printed tons of signs and lobbied their neighbors and local officials against the idea.
Thorngate resident Lisa Rosen, who worked to raise awareness and opposition to the problem within her neighborhood and online, said Thursday that the petition’s withdrawal was a big win for area residents.
“The lesson I want my kids to know is you stand up for what you believe in,” Rosen said. “When you make a stand, others believe and you come together and you can create great things. And I do believe this is a great win, because it was not the right project for the Baxter land.”
David Meeks, the land use and zoning attorney residents retained, said Thursday that, “the community would fight” and be “fully engaged with that proposal” if Bridge took its pitch to the Lake County Board and its Planning, Building and Development staff.
By pulling its petition from consideration by Deerfield before the hearing, Bridge at least delayed the public airing of independently gathered data and studies of potential project impacts.
“Our environmental air quality report would have talked about the increased emissions, and the worse quality of the emissions to come from idling diesel trucks and how that hadn’t been in the developer’s environmental assessment,” Meek said.
Last month, more than 500 residents packed the Deerfield High School gymnasium to see Bridge Industrial representatives and consultant formally present its plans to the Deerfield Plan Commission, which would have made a recommendation about the project to the village board.
A petition urging action against the annexation proposal and Bridge’s redevelopment plans also drew more than 5,000 signatures.
An initial public hearing on the plan was postponed because so many residents packed Village Hall that officials were concerned holding the meeting would have violated the Open Meetings Act.
Attempts to reach Bridge Industrial Senior Vice President Mark Houser and Chicago Region Partner Jonathan Pozerycki on Thursday and Friday were unsuccessful.
