What’s ahead for Joliet in new year: Changes coming to downtown, new developments

The coming year could be decisive for projects and developments in the works for years in Joliet.

A few of the things coming up in the new year:

• Residents should see what a new city square and redesigned Chicago Street downtown have to offer by late 2025.

• A new Hollywood Casino under construction in the Rock Run Collection development also could open in late 2025, but will developer Cullinan Properties announce anything else in the coming months?

• Around town, Ascension Saint Joseph – Joliet hospital changes hands again, Lion Electric may or may not resume production, the city will mark the first groundbreaking for the 2030 Lake Michigan water project, and librarygoers should see remodeling begin at the Black Road Branch.

Downtown

It’s a big year for downtown.

Residents should be able to judge for themselves how much a new city square and modernized Chicago Street transforms the heart of the downtown business district.

Both projects are slated to be done by the end of the year, so Joliet can make an impression when the expected Route 66 tourism traffic begins to arrive for the 100th anniversary of the historic highway in 2026.

“It’s going to make downtown Joliet a real destination point,” Amber Duffy, a downtown real estate agent, said in July. “It’s going to be more family-friendly.”

Rock Run Collection

Meanwhile, Rock Run Collection, the project that promises to create a new collection of attractions for Joliet, has a big year ahead.

The new Hollywood Casino is scheduled to open in late 2025 or early 2026.

Either way, Cullinan Properties has not yet announced any of the other hotels, restaurants, stores, entertainment venues and office projects that the developer for years has said will come to the crossroads site at Interstates 55 and 80.

With a new I-55 interchange having opened in 2024 to accommodate the development, surely something will get announced and under construction in the coming year.

“We have some really fun stuff coming,” Mayor Terry D’Arcy said in October when the interchange opened. “It’s things Joliet needs and deserves.”

Ascension Saint Joseph – Joliet

Joliet’s hospital is changing hands again.

Known by local residents simply as St. Joe’s, the one part of the hospital name that has remained constant through four ownership changes since the 1990s, the name surely will undergo another alteration in the new year as California-based Prime Healthcare takes ownership.

Scheduled for the first quarter, the change of ownership will mark the first time since the hospital was founded in 1882 that it will not be Catholic-based.

Prime Healthcare is a for-profit hospital network that promises improvements in the Joliet institution.

“We look forward to completing the transaction process and bringing Prime Healthcare’s mission of saving and improving hospitals and uplifting communities to Illinois,” Prime said in a statement last month after the state approved the acquisition.

Lake Michigan water project

Another change from the 19th century origins of Joliet is the switch from well water to Lake Michigan water.

That’s scheduled to happen in 2030.

But a groundbreaking for the start of the project is expected this spring, although it will be on the Chicago end of the system that will bring water to Joliet.

Meanwhile, the city will continue the massive overhaul of water mains, a project in place for years in preparation for Lake Michigan water.

The city in 2025 will spend $101 million building 30 miles of water mains as it replaces all mains built before 1970.

NorthPoint-CenterPoint

NorthPoint Development’s plan for a huge warehouse park has been controversial since the developer proposed it to the village of Elwood in 2017.

Now in Joliet, the NorthPoint controversy will continue into 2025.

Adding fuel to the fire, the Joliet City Council voted in December to exert eminent domain to help NorthPoint get land to build a bridge needed for the project.

Whether a judge approves the city’s attempt to take land is one more legal issue looming for 2025.

Lawsuits awaiting conclusion include disputes with rival developer CenterPoint Properties, which holds rights to the land that is the subject of the eminent domain attempt, and local groups formed to block the project.

Lion Electric

One big question hanging over the local economy is whether the Lion Electric assembly plant will reopen in 2025.

The financially beleaguered company stopped production in Joliet in early December and has been court-seeking since then to get protection from creditors while looking for potential buyers of its operations.

Executives with the Canada-based company arrived in Joliet in 2021 saying they would create 1,400 jobs in Joliet. But the company employed a few hundred at most since building its first bus in Joliet in late 2022.

Black Road library branch

Library patrons may see remodeling start in May at the Joliet Public Library Black Road Branch.

The City Council could vote as soon as next week on a $3.5 million loan to the library to finance the project.

Plans include a new children’s section, private study rooms and more.

Library Executive Director Megan Millen said the project could begin by May and would last about 10 months.