South Cook News

The development of the Calumet Country Club into an 800,000-square-foot industrial hub can again shoulder onto completion despite resistance from the Homewood community. 

The village spent nearly two years digging its heels in against the update to the struggling 130-acre golf course.

Homewood has settled with the developers and landowners to receive some of the tax flow from the industrial distribution hub and must approve the project plans by May 12 or see the land and project be disconnected from Homewood and proceed without the opinion of or benefit to the village. Diversified Partners is calling full steam ahead, while others remind the developers to tread smartly. 

"Any project that is being developed has to be done in a way that is consistent with the wants and needs of municipalities," Chicago Southland Economic Development Corporation Executive Director Reggie Greenwood told South Cook News. "They get to decide. Certainly, the land has economic violability as something other than a golf course." 

Greenwood said that, while the former golf course site has potential for economic growth, the projects should be supported by the municipalities surrounding it. Calumet Country Club is bordered on three sides by Hazel Crest, which has voiced opposition to the developer's plans, according to the Cook County Record.

If either Hazel Crest or Homewood were to allow the land to secede from their municipal borders, residents of either community could benefit from the thousands of jobs made available by the development. However, the communities' tax coffers would have nothing to gain from the millions generated in property tax revenue each year. 

"I don't know what Hazel Crest will do," Greenwood said. "It's not a done deal. [...] That would be an interesting question."

Diversified Partners CEO Walt Brown Jr. told Cook County Record that his group "is prepared to continue the process and bring the project to fruition" no matter the stance taken by Homewood or Hazel Crest. 

"It's disappointing that people are choosing to do this," Brown said, "but we're not slowing down, and we're not stopping."

Greenwood said that any developer would agree that a project has to carefully fit into the community's fabric. 

"They get the right to decide," Greenwood said. "No doubt about it. [The project] needs to be approved by the authority of the municipality."