This article originally ran in the Illinois Business Journal on May 3, 2022.
Illinois Route 3 from Alton to Columbia, Ill., is the backbone of a 60-mile-long corridor supporting the manufacturing and logistics industries in Southwestern Illinois running parallel to St. Louis along the Mississippi River and Interstate 255.
It is a corridor that is economically impactful and successful, features an accessible workforce with a skill concentration in manufacturing and distribution that far exceeds national averages and is optimized for manufacturing and logistics. These three attributes continue to attract national site selectors in a highly competitive industrial real estate market and serve as metrics that differentiate the region’s market from others.
“New businesses can be assured they are entering a market that has a high concentration of successful industrial businesses, which reduces site selection risk for like firms,” said Doug Rasmussen, CEO and managing principal of Steadfast City Economic & Community Partners. “The area has a deep track record of new capital investments resulting in business growth and additional expansion and profitability. The underlying fundamentals of Route 3 help businesses more easily achieve growth and success and their return on capital objectives.”
The corridor is home to well-known entities such as U.S. Steel’s Granite City Works, America’s Central Port (one of the largest freight hubs in the Midwest), Sauget Business Park and Union Pacific’s intermodal yard.
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