What does CenterPoint want?

CenterPoint Properties may have plans of its own to slow down the Compass Global Logistics Park, but it’s not saying if it does.

Oak Brook-based CenterPoint is the developer of the CenterPoint Intermodal Center, the 6,400-acre industrial park that stretches into Joliet and Elwood and includes the two intermodal rail yards operated by Union Pacific and BNSF Railway.

The company on Tuesday sent a letter to the city of Joliet calling for the vote that evening on the Compass Global Logistics Park plan from NorthPoint Development to be tabled.

CenterPoint Chief Development Officer Michael Murphy in the letter states that the NorthPoint plan depends on use of private roads developed by CenterPoint and violates agreements made with Joliet when the CenterPoint Intermodal Center was approved.

Suggesting CenterPoint is ready to go to court, Murphy ends the letter stating that the developer “will continue to evaluate its rights under current agreements and covenants that bind the city and protect CenterPoint’s rights.”

The letter never was mentioned and no one from CenterPoint spoke at the public hearing before the City Council voted, 6-2, to approve the 2,300-acre NorthPoint plan.

CenterPoint wasn’t talking the next day either when asked to comment on the letter.

Mayor Bob O’Dekirk said the developer wasn’t talking with city staff either.

“They wanted to meet with me a week ago, and they never showed up at the meeting,” O’Dekirk said the day after the council vote. “I don’t know why they’re playing games with the media. They had an opportunity to meet with city staff.”

Suggesting the letter was a media ploy, O’Dekirk said, “If they wanted to go to the public meeting, they could have gone to the public meeting.”

Murphy did say in the letter that it should be considered as CenterPoint’s public testimony for the NorthPoint hearing.

CenterPoint took a similar approach at a Nov. 19 meeting of the Joliet Plan Commission, when that panel considered the NorthPoint plan.

Murphy sent a letter that day to be considered as testimony. But no one from CenterPoint appeared at the public hearing before the Plan Commission, which recommended approval of the NorthPoint plan in a 6-2 vote. The letter was not mentioned at that hearing.

Murphy would not comment then either.

But both letters suggest CenterPoint views the NorthPoint project as a potential intrusion on the CenterPoint Intermodal Center and is ready to take legal action to impede the plan.

The NorthPoint plan does depend on access to roads in the CenterPoint Intermodal Center.

Murphy’s letter describes the the NorthPoint plan as tantamount to an expansion of the CenterPoint Intermodal Center.

“The NorthPoint development, alone, represents an expansion of the existing development by 2,356 acres of privately-owned industrial property,” Murphy wrote.

The closed-loop road network planned by NorthPoint “will funnel traffic directly and exclusively to CenterPoint’s private road infrastructure at the intersection of Millsdale Road and CenterPoint Way,” Murphy wrote.

NorthPoint counters public opposition to its project by saying the proposed closed-loop network will provide a direct path between future warehouses and the intermodal yards while keeping trucks off of local roads.

The closed-loop includes use of roads within the CenterPoint Intermodal Center to get to the intermodal yards and the Houbolt Road bridge, which CenterPoint Properties is building in a private joint venture, to get to Interstate 80.

“The traffic studies conducted by NorthPoint and produced by the city of Joliet do not address the impact that the 2,356-acre development will have on CenterPoint’s existing roadway infrastructure,” Murphy writes. “Nor has information been provided to establish that the CLTN (closed-loop transportation network) is in compliance with the City of Joliet’s existing agreements and obligations.”