A few years ago, the region launched its Choose Greater Peoria initiative to market our community to the rest of the nation (and world) as a great place to live. As that campaign’s important work continues, we are having a pretty good run lately of companies choosing Greater Peoria to be the new home of their business. It’s been a pretty great six month stretch for business attraction efforts with a number of great announcements. Those of us who live here know about our great quality of life and affordability. But the same is true for those who do business here – they recognize our strong regional assets like a great workforce, excellent location and phenomenal business community. So how nice is it to see both individuals and companies who are not from here come to the same realization?
The latest announcement was from Damera Corporation. You can read a bit more about their decision elsewhere in this newsletter. Damera is a division of a Canadian bus distributor called Mississauga Bus Group of Companies and has been selling and servicing buses, mostly to public transit agencies, in the United States for decades. Damera specializes in all electric buses, and in concert with a Turkish manufacturer called Karsan, is planning to open its first American manufacturing operation in Greater Peoria. When I first met the Damera team, they were coming to the end of their search for a facility. Their main question was a critical one: How could they know that our community could support their needs for a qualified and available workforce? The answer was easy – we’ve been making things in Greater Peoria for more than a century. I shared with them that our manufacturing workforce was generational. They wouldn’t be plopping a factory in a town that had to learn about manufacturing, they’d be hiring men and women whose parents, grandparents and maybe even great grandparents were industry professionals. I shared about the programs at Illinois Central College and the success that nearby Rivian had in attracting over 8,000 employees to work in their EV factory. Combined with finding the right short term location in East Peoria and a competitive incentive package from the state of Illinois, their confidence in our ability to deliver the right workforce sealed the deal.
The Damera announcement came on the heels of two other announcements of investment in Greater Peoria. Like Damera, Epic Medical chose land in Pekin to construct their first medical device factory. A Singapore based company with manufacturing operations in southeast Asia, Epic saw similar potential in Greater Peoria. They appreciated the level of service the team of local and state professionals provided as they worked through their decision and were similarly impressed with our workforce. A bit earlier than that announcement, in late 2024 Viridis Chemical, an American “startup” green chemical company, decided to move its ethyl acetate plant from western Nebraska to a location in Peoria next to the BioUrja ethanol plant. Their decision was based more on being closer to their supplier (BioUrja), but they were swayed by the partnership offered by local municipal officials, a strong local workforce, and the friendliness of the community in welcoming them.
It feels good to be picked, and we definitely hope to see the momentum continue. But while it might feel like we are on a “lucky streak” the reality is that companies have been choosing to invest in Greater Peoria for quite some time. In just the last year or so, two of our major manufacturers have made major investments in our community. In late 2024, Komatsu broke ground on a $30 million engineering center on the Peoria campus. Caterpillar is investing millions in a renovation of their downtown administration building to make room for more employees. On the health care front, we continue to see both OSF Healthcare and Carle Health upgrade their facilities, add new programming and invest in Greater Peoria. This includes OSF breaking ground on a new 100-bed behavioral health hospital and Carle cutting the ribbon on one of the state’s largest young and adolescent behavioral health centers. And these are just a few examples in Peoria investing in Peoria.
One of my favorite sayings is that companies invest in places that are seeing investment. Everyone likes a winner, and I believe that our more recent success is not only excellent news on its face, but also a signal to others that Greater Peoria is a place to be. Our job – both at Greater Peoria EDC and across the community – is to continue telling our story, being responsive to opportunity, and serving as partners to business.