In January 2022, Mars Wrigley, the maker of Milky Method, Snickers and Three Musketeers sweet introduced its plan to maneuver operations from its Chicago plant at 2019 N. Oak Park Ave. to its different amenities all through america.
It’s now one step nearer to figuring out what is going to occur to its property.
When it closes later this 12 months, Mars Wrigley will switch the 20-acre Chicago website to a developer and is within the means of finalizing who that might be.
“The final word purpose is that it’s going to present profit to the neighborhood,” mentioned Anne Vela-Wagner, the manager director of the Mars Wrigley Basis, about the way forward for the positioning. “What that appears like is kind of sophisticated, and it’s been a really inspiring journey to go on.”
The method to discover a developer to take over the Mars manufacturing unit began in 2022, when a bunch of Chicago organizations — Austin Coming Collectively, the Metropolis of Chicago, Galewood Neighbors, Northwest Middle, and the Native Initiatives Help Company of Chicago (LISC) — organized a sequence of 5 conferences to gather neighborhood suggestions about what ought to take over the area at 2019 N. Oak Park Ave.
LISC compiled the primary takeaways from the assembly right into a report, which recommends the positioning be a mixed-use area and obtain historic designation.
The Metropolis of Chicago will determine whether or not to rezone the property from a Deliberate Manufacturing District to mixed-use zoning. The method is public, involving neighborhood suggestions, and will take no less than a 12 months after a developer applies to alter the positioning’s zoning.
“The rezoning facet of this entire undertaking goes to drive a number of the timing,” Vela-Wagner mentioned.
In October, the constructing’s facade on Oak Park Avenue was submitted to the Fee on Chicago Landmarks to obtain historic designation. The Mars Wrigley plant in Galewood opened in 1929 as the primary of the corporate’s manufacturing websites outdoors of Minneapolis, Minnesota, and the manufacturing unit housed its company headquarters there for many years. If town approves the facade’s historic designation, the chosen developer is required to depart the facade.
Mars acquired a number of proposals from builders to take over the positioning, in response to Vela-Wagner. Standards for selecting a developer contains the developer’s alignment with each Mars’ and the neighborhood’s imaginative and prescient, plus the developer’s previous expertise and monetary phrases, officers mentioned in an announcement with the method’ replace.
However simply because the Chicago Mars website will stop to exist, the sweet firm’s presence within the metropolis gained’t.
In January, Mars Wrigley introduced the opening of a world analysis and improvement hub on its Goose Island campus, the world headquarters for the corporate’s snacking enterprise, which is able to proceed operations.
“We’re positively devoted to the Metropolis of Chicago,” Vela-Wagner mentioned. “We’ve got an extended historical past right here and we honor that and wish to proceed to work intently with the neighborhood all through this.”
Vela-Wagner mentioned that the neighborhood engagement course of in getting ready to switch the Chicago manufacturing unit’s property to a developer is a brand new endeavor for Mars.
“Transparency has been key,” Vela-Wagner mentioned. “We’re coming at this actually grounded in mutuality. It’s one in every of Mars’ rules and the way we work. So, it’s not nearly what’s good for Mars, it’s about what’s good for everybody.”
“We really feel we’ve been good neighbors,” she added. “We’ve been surrounded by good neighbors, and we wish to proceed that within the years to return.”
Vela-Wagner mentioned Mars Wrigley will announce a developer within the subsequent few months. The Mars manufacturing unit will shut earlier than the top of the 12 months.
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