The City Council recently approved the sale of approximately 1/3 of the Lutticken Farm property for $4.5 million to a technology park developer who plans to build corporate offices, data centers, and AI computing space off of Highway 98 (see rough concept below).

This is a wonderful opportunity for the City to grow by providing over 100 well-paying jobs to the community, adding a projected $20 million of new annual property tax revenue, and getting a developer to front the cash for bringing water, sewer, electric, and gas infrastructure to the Lutticken property. The developer has a 9-month due diligence period to work with the utility companies and to perform studies on the property, and they are putting $50,000 down during that time. The development is planned to take place over 5 years, where they will start building the first of several buildings in a campus-like setting in 2-3 years and finish the development by the 5th year. Site plans will be submitted to City staff and will go through our normal process with Zoning Board of Appeals and City Council review.

While the City is purchasing the entire Lutticken property now to move this forward, Lutticken Lake will not be impacted by this development. The land being sold is about a half-mile as the crow flies from the closest point of the development to the arm of the lake, and the development will not pull water from the lake. In fact, the buildings will recycle a majority of their water for cooling purposes, so the City’s sewers will also not be heavily impacted.

The developer was attracted to Pekin because of the size of the available property and its proximity to Ameren’s electric transmission lines. City staff made first contact with the developer in November and introduced them to Ameren’s team for a deeper look at the infrastructure and ability to serve the development’s power needs. While their power need is great, the development will be well-planned and will ramp up electric usage over a few years, not all at once, lessening the impact on the regional energy market.

The City greatly looks forward to this development and its impact on our community. While we always say it’s never official until it’s built, this sale was a very big forward step, and we feel confident the rest will come with time.

June 5: St. Jude Summer Rides Street Party

June 6: Boutique Flea Market

June 27-28: Dragon’s Fire Hot Air Balloon Fest

July 11: Boutique Flea Market

Visit DiscoverPekin.com for a full list of community events