Joliet Chamber Move: 'I Really Wanted To Lease From Bays'

JOLIET, IL — In the dead of winter, John Bays and his crews with Bays Investments are busy remodeling several rooms and several floors inside the Two Rialto Square Building. Next month, Bays gains another prominent tenant: Joliet's Region Chamber of Commerce & Industry.

The Chamber has sold its long-time office building, a block away, to a local law firm. Joliet Chamber President Jen Howard said the time was right for the Chamber to downsize.

Come March, the Joliet Chamber will occupy one of the first-floor professional offices inside the Two Rialto Square Building that Bays acquired in December 2018.

"I really wanted to lease from Bays," Howard told Joliet Patch on Monday. "I've heard such great things about them as a landlord."

Howard said the Joliet Chamber building at 63 North Chicago St. was too big for her needs moving forward.

The Chamber owned the property since the late 1990s, staff said.

Since the pandemic, Howard has downsized her staff to four employees. The Chamber building being sold had six offices, two conference rooms, three bathrooms and a four-car heated garage near the back alleyway.

"The four-car heated garage, we'll really miss that one though," Howard said.

Howard said the Joliet Chamber signed a 10-year lease with Bays Investments for the Two Rialto Square Building, 116 North Chicago St.

"We wanted to stay downtown," she said. "It's the same footprint, right where we have all our festivals."

Adding the Joliet Chamber gives Bays a total of seven tenants for his Two Rialto Square property, which is right next door to Joliet's historic Rialto Square Theatre, which opened in 1926.

One of his anchor tenants is the Will County Regional Superintendent of Schools Office. Other tenants include law firms and insurance companies.

On Monday afternoon, Bays gave Joliet Patch a tour of the ongoing work inside his Two Rialto Square Building. Several contractors were busy on the upper two floors. Bays is turning the fifth and sixth floors into 20 high-end loft apartments.

Bays is not advertising the apartments for lease yet, but he said Monday that he already has commitments from nine local attorneys who want to live here.

The apartments will be one or two bedrooms.

Bays said he is installing laundry rooms on each of the two upper floors.

"When it's done, it's going to look really good," Bays assured Joliet Patch.

Because of the coronavirus pandemic, Bays said he has worked at a slower pace on the large first-floor sports bar and fine-dining restaurant inside his Two Rialto Square Building. Bays said he has not selected a tenant for the restaurant, but has plenty of people interested.

Meanwhile, Bays is renovating another portion of the first-floor, next door to the Joliet Chamber's new offices, for his own company.

"I'm moving right next door," Bays said.

Since last year, Bays has talked about relocating his Bays Investments headquarters from the Twin Oaks Place on West Jefferson Street to downtown Joliet.

"I need to be downtown," Bays said. "I wanted to be in the Premier Building (on Jackson Street), but I'm almost 100 percent sure we're moving in here.

"I don't see any reason that I won't be all done with this building totally by June or July," Bays said.

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