Larger Elk Grove Business, Technology Parks See Post-Pandemic Low Vacancy Rate

The Elk Grove Village Business Park vacancy rate, an area that now includes the Elk Grove Technology Park, hit a post-pandemic low of 2.8% for the third quarter of July, August and September, according to numbers released Tuesday, Oct. 12.

The previous record-low vacancy rate was 2.55%. Elk Grove Village officials boast the village has the largest industrial park in North America at about six square miles.

Mayor Craig Johnson said there have been substantial changes in the business park since 2018, including the addition of the 1.2 million square foot Elk Grove Technology Park, which Johnson said, as of this month, is completely filled with leased or designated tenants.

Elk Grove Village has been one of the top data center locations nationally for several years. The technology park has led to a rapid expansion in the development of more data centers, including a three-building Microsoft data center campus on 36 acres in the technology park, currently under construction.

Besides data centers under development in and around the technology park, the village has designated a business park area along Northwest Pointe Boulevard as the Elk Grove Innovation Park.

All that development of new and renovated buildings means more square footage under roof, meaning higher property values, subject to higher property taxes, coming from the business community to offset residential property taxes. Johnson said developers are now not just building one-story buildings out, they are building multiple-story buildings up. 

Besides additional property tax revenue for the village, the multiple new multi-billion dollar data center developments will mean tens of millions of dollars in electricity taxes to the village.

“When all the data centers (currently under development) are done, our electricity tax could rival our (village) sales tax, which was $22 million last year,” Johnson said.  

Johnson said, although data centers and technology companies are the newest entries into the business and technology parks, the village still has many logistics, freight forwarding, and small shop manufacturers. During the pandemic, many of those companies pivoted to manufacture everything from labels for ventilators, to masks and other PPE, including the plexiglass shields which can now be found in front of nearly every cashier at every retailer and fast food restaurant.

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