Bloom Township to Build New Chicago Heights Facility

The City of Chicago Heights has entered into an intergovernmental agreement with Bloom Township to relocate the Bloom Township Highway Department’s State Street office to current city property at the intersection of Independence Avenue and Oak Street.

The highway department’s office is located above an underground natural gas storage facility. Utility providers ComEd and Nicor have been working with the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency to identify and clean up certain sites for their respective utility operations throughout the state. The township was seeking to relocate the highway offices based on the clean-up IEPA identified at their current site.

ComEd and Nicor will fund the $2 million construction of the new facility. The new building will be ADA compliant, and will increase energy efficiency with more LED lighting and natural lighting. In addition to the positive environmental impacts that are a part of this project, another mutual benefit of the relocation will be the shared salt dome for both the City and the Township. The new location, near the Chicago Heights Public Works garage, provides a centralized area for street crews to load salt and to send snowplows to all sections of the city.

The city and township collaborated in identifying the Independence Avenue property as an ideal location for both entities. In exchange for the Independence Avenue property, the city will take ownership of the current highway department site, located at 1640 State Street, once the environmental clean-up is complete.