Residents and groups near a proposed quantum computer campus at the former U.S. Steel South Works site on Chicago’s Southeast Side are urging city and state officials to slow down the development process and first secure an agreement on community benefits.
At a press conference organized Friday by the Alliance of the Southeast, a coalition of churches, schools, businesses and community organizations, residents expressed shock over two proposed city ordinances introduced Oct. 9 that advance plans for the quantum research park. The ordinances would modify the site’s zoning regulations and codify tax incentives.
The project was first announced by state, county and city officials in late July. The multibillion-dollar, 440-acre Illinois Quantum and Microelectronics Park, is to be anchored by Silicon Valley startup PsiQuantum. Gov. JB Pritzker touted “limitless opportunities for economic investment and innovation right here on the South Side.” The announcement signaled a major leap forward in Pritzker’s goal of creating a “Silicon Valley of quantum development” in the state.
“This development is moving at breakneck speed,” said Amalia NietoGomez, executive director of the Alliance of the SouthEast. “We need to have real community benefits. We need to have these conversations, and we need this to be slowed down.”
NietoGomez said the “community had to rally” and pressure leaders to host public meetings in the first place. So far, two have taken place, she said.
However, NietoGomez said groups have yet to hear from the developer any actual plans to ensure community needs are met.
Residents are demanding an agreement that guarantees jobs with living wages for local residents, addresses concerns over displacement, contributes to improving amenities along the lakefront and in neighboring parks, invests in local schools and mitigates traffic and pollution, among other things.
WBEZ reached out to both the mayor’s and governor’s offices but did not receive a response on Friday.
NietoGomez said residents were told by project leaders at a community meeting that groundbreaking would begin in winter, “as early as January.”
Related Midwest, the developer, said the goal is to start work in the first quarter of 2025.
In a statement, Related Midwest added that project leaders are working with United Way of Metro Chicago, Claretian Associates and the Local Initiatives Support Corporation to “develop a Quality of Life Plan for South Chicago.”
The statement did not address whether Related would discuss a legally binding community benefits agreement as outlined by the Alliance of the SouthEast.
At the press conference, held over Zoom, some community members talked about the economic impact on local residents.
“We hear about benefits to the world … potentially cures, new drugs, new solutions to climate [change],” said Clifton Muhammad, who owns a record shop in the area. But there are “local sacrifices, the local tax benefits” that could go to nearby schools and parks.
The state is offering a number of incentives — including $300 million to build out the campus. The city of Chicago is planning to spend $5 million from its housing and economic development bond on the campus, and offer additional tax breaks for the developers, according to media reports.
PsiQuantum has said it expects to create at least 150 jobs over five years, including engineers, technicians and roles in finance, sales and human resources, according to state officials. In total, Illinois projects that the campus will generate “up to $20 billion in economic impact and create thousands of jobs,” with more tenants to be announced in coming months.
But Muhammad asked whether any of the jobs promised by PsiQuantum positions would be set aside for local community members.
“There could be no local impact,” he said. “Jobs could go wherever they want to go through the cloud, depending on how the campus is designed, depending on what the plans are for engaging the local community.”
Other residents expressed environmental concerns, including turning up potentially contaminated soil on the development site and generating pollution from the quantum campus.
Officials from the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency said at the first community meeting that the site was evaluated as safe for occupation in 1997 — and then re-evaluated in 2006 and 2010.
“I live two blocks from the site,” said Anne Holcomb, with the environmental justice group ETHOS. “We’re not going to be unwilling beneficiaries of the pollution that comes into our bodies from that stuff.”
Holcomb pointed out that the quantum campus would be “the size of The 78 plus the Mercy Hospital site, and then some, combined,” referring to two redevelopment sites in the South Loop. She added that when she and others reached out to their local lawmakers — state Sen. Robert Peters and state Rep. Curtis Tarver — they were told “This is the governor’s project … basically it’s above their pay grade.”
Holcomb added, “It’s very, very frustrating to us that live here. I’m disappointed. I had some faith in our elected officials, and I’m losing that faith by the day because they’re not responding.”
The next public meeting is scheduled for Oct. 29, at New Sullivan Elementary School.