South Suburban Lawmakers Urge Pritzker To Fund Peotone Airport

OAK FOREST, IL — Elected officials across the south suburbs are urging Gov. JB Pritzker to greenlight funding for the region's third airport, saying municipalities have no more time to waste as Chicago's flagging aviation capacity is costing the region jobs and money.

Fifty-four elected officials across the south suburbs, including U.S. Congresswoman Robin Kelly of Matteson and House Speaker Michael Madigan, pressed Pritzker in a letter to set aside $150 million in the 2020 capital bill to pay for off-site improvements, including a new interchange on I-57, local road upgrades and utilities connections. The airport, which the FAA refers to as the South Suburban Airport, will be financed by private dollars. The request comes as state legislators work on a capital bill to fund infrastructure projects across Illinois. The last time the legislature had one was 2009.

"This is really the big push," Kelly said at the Chicago Southland Economic Development Corporation's quarterly meeting in Oak Forest, where she briefed local officials on the status of the $450 million-project.

"We could have secured more signatures, but it's time now to get the project moving."

Since 2000, the Illinois Department of Transportation has spent more than $100 million to purchase 4,500 acres of what is largely farmland in Will County for the proposed airport. The project stalled because former Governor Bruce Rauner did not support it. Pritzker has said he would support a third Chicago airport as long as it did not take jobs away from O’Hare or Midway airports.

Will County farmers and residents also have opposed the project. However, mayors and other elected officials support the airport because estimates show that it will attract as many as 11,000 construction jobs, another 15,000 jobs on opening day, and up to 50,000 new positions 10 years after it is built. It could bring in $170 million each year in taxes, the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning reports.

At the meeting, Kelly reported that land acquisition and planning is 90 percent complete. The state so far owns 89 percent of the land where it will sit and is poised to secure the rest once all other details are in place. All FAA approvals are in place, except for the final, detailed construction plan by the contractor. What's needed, she and signers of the letter said, is the funding to wrap up the final leg of the project.

Chicago, they added, is the only large metropolitan region without a third airport.

"Chicago makes no small plans. And as Governor you are encouraging big ideas," they wrote in the letter to Pritzker. "We look forward to working with the Administration to create a new shining star with 21st Century American ingenuity."

Planners stressed that the airport will be small. When it opens, the airport will have five to 10 passenger gates, a cargo facility, one control tower and one, long runway. It will permit nonstop service to most locations except Australia.

The FAA in 1985 ordered Illinois to build a new airport in the Chicago area because it was predicted the region would hit aviation capacity by 2ooo. Supporters of the third airport said that has happened, and as a result, it has lost passenger and cargo market shares as carrier moved operations to other cities with more capacity. The last new airport was built in Dallas-Ft. Worth in 1969.

The region's mayors who signed the letter include David Gonzales of Chicago Heights, Richard Hofeld of Homewood, Paul Braun of Flossmoor, James Popp of Monee, Kyle Hastings of Orland Hills, Louis Presta of Crestwood and Timothy Nugent of Manteno.

Read the full letter.