A revamped “business” webpage is giving Carpentersville an online presence that officials hope will be a boon for economic development.
Community Development Director Matthew Dabrowski and Marketing and Events Coordinator Jen Hyde worked on overhauling the page at cville.org/35/Business to make it more appealing and easier for potential developers to navigate.
“We wanted to address one of the strategic goals of the board, which was to create an economic development program to fill vacant storefronts and underutilized properties,” Dabrowski said at a recent village board meeting.
To do that, staff had to have a better understanding of the market and what the dynamics of that market entail, he said.
They also looked at the area within a five-mile radius of the village, he said. While Carpentersville has a population of 38,000, the market’s population is 134,000.
This is the population base the village is “working to draw from and bring into the community so they spend their dollars in our town rather than our residents spending their dollars out of town,” Dabrowski said.
Data from Why Kane, a county initiative for economic development, provides details about traffic counts, retail sales and other factors developers consider, Dabrowski said.
Kane’s research shows there’s more than $200 million in unmet commercial potential within the market, he said. “It means there’s room for additional restaurants and retail establishments,” he said.
The west side of Carpentersville is different than the east, where the market is not as strong but growing, Dabrowski said. There, the village needs to focus on bringing in smaller retailers, he said.
The webpage focuses on four corridors: Route 25, Route 31, Randall Road and the village’s western expansion west of Randall Road. Each corridor is highlighted on the page, with the focus being on large-scale developments, he said.
Carpentersville has 1.3 million square feet of commercial space, with a 4.8% vacancy rate, Dabrowski said. The vacancy rate is consistent with surrounding villages.
The data gave village officials insight into not only the commercial inventory but also the industrial market, he said.
Currently, the village has 2 million square feet of industrial space, he said. “Right now, we have a good problem. We are completely occupied. We have about an .8% vacancy rate,” he said.
“One thing we may want to consider when we think about economic development is that there could be a significant demand for industrial,” Dabrowski said. “(That might) not be a bad thing to have for our community because there is a need and there are other indirect benefits,” he said.
An indirect benefit is that industrial development increases the daytime population, which is what developers look at when considering locations, he said.
The revamped webpage provides information about the daytime population, along with charts, tables, maps, information on zoning, and consumer data.
“We had a lot of information on (previous) page,” Hyde said. “Our goal wasn’t just to repackage the content. It was really to be able to reposition how we present the opportunity for economic development.”
The village used embedded words on the webpage, like regional connectivity and incentivized development, that will direct developers to the page, she said.
“It is no longer just a source of data; it is now a sales tool,” Hyde said.
Gloria Casas is a freelance reporter for The Courier-News.