Geneva approves annexation of nearly 55 acres for Bullock Campus

GENEVA – The Geneva City Council at a special meeting Feb. 26 approved an annexation and several development agreements for almost 55 acres at the southeast corner of Kirk Road and Division Street.

The applicant, Pheasant Tail LLC, was created by Glenn and Jane Bullock. The proposal is to develop the 53.78-acre site as the corporate campus for A.J. Antunes & Co., a family-owned business established in 1955, records show.

“We are beyond excited to welcome Antunes to Geneva and thank the Bullock family and their team for advancing a development that elevates Geneva’s reputation as a place to achieve corporate success and community pride,” Mayor Kevin Burns said.

The city embraced the Bullock campus with a unanimous vote, Burns said.

"The Bullock family and their team engaged the community with a vision that enhances our Kirk Road business park and enhances Geneva’s reputation as a place for corporate success,” Burns said.

Glenn Bullock told the council that Bullock Holdings is a family entity, now in its third generation with the fourth soon to come and that he married into the Antunes family.

“Antunes is the manufacturing business that’s been in our family since 1955,” Bullock said. “We’re really a company that really talks about our people and the community we’re in.”

The company is in Carol Stream, where it has been for 24 years. Before that, it was in Addison for 40 years, Bullock said.

The project in Geneva is to make way for the company’s expansion.

The company makes equipment for quick service restaurants such as McDonald’s, Pizza Hut and Chick-fil-A.

Bullock said it has 400 employees at its current location, but expects to expand and have 1,000 at its new campus in Geneva.

As a global company, it sells to 150 countries and has factories in China and India and sales offices in Madrid and Kenya.

“We’re growing pretty quickly,” Bullock said.

The proposal includes a 373,924-square-foot light manufacturing facility, 15,000-square-foot school, 18,975-square-foot auditorium, 12,000-square-foot retreat center, 29,894 square feet of retail space and 20,000 square feet reserved for a compatible future use along with 1,173 parking spaces, according to the board packet.

The campus, as envisioned, would be built in four phases: manufacturing center, stormwater detention, headquarters, retail space, grocery, retreat center, hotel for global visitors, a showcase kitchen, child care and a school on-site for employees, a wellness center, restaurant to serve food to employees and the community, a vertical garden on the roof to grow food for the test kitchen and to sell in the grocery and an auditorium that would seat 500 to 600 people for meetings and rentals, Bullock said.

Although employees would have the right of first refusal, the K-8 private school also would be available to the community, Bullock said.

Truck traffic would be limited to about 15 trucks in the morning bringing in components and the same amount in the afternoon shipping out containers, Bullock said.

The council approved the annexation agreement, the annexation of two parcels, a zoning map amendment to light industrial from rural residential, a preliminary plat of planned unit development for the campus and preliminary and final plat of subdivision and approval of a final plat and site plan.