Auto parts supplier Lear Corp., one of Hammond's largest employers, is planning a massive investment in a new factory on the city's north side.
The company, which supplies seats for the Ford Explorer to the nearby Chicago Assembly Plant in Hegewisch, plans to invest $30 million in a new 270,000-square-foot facility on the north side of Michigan Street near Hammond's South Shore Line station. It will employ 750 workers there.
“Knowing Lear’s past success in our city, we hope that this much bigger 30-acre site will allow for future expansion and additional job creation,” Hammond Mayor Thomas McDermott Jr. stated in a news release. “Hammond’s Economic Development team has been working on this project for hundreds of hours over the past year. We were in competition with many other communities around the Chicagoland area for this employer, so I am proud that Hammond was chosen as Lear’s new location."
For decades, the Dearborn, Michigan-based auto supplier has operated a 100,000-square-foot seat factory on 165th Street in Hammond. As Explorer sales have risen, it outgrew the factory, even moving subassembly work to Portage a few years ago.
The company could not be immediately reached for comment.
Lear had been looking for a new location where it could build a much larger factory to accommodate the demand, McDermott said. Hammond has been trying to land the new factory for the last 12 to 18 months.
"I want to congratulate Hammond’s Director of Planning and Development, Phil Taillon, and Hammond’s Director of Economic Development, Africa Tarver, for their persistence in landing this project for the residents of Hammond," McDermott said in the release. "Losing Lear would have been a blow to Hammond’s economy. Instead, we will receive a new investment of $30 million, and hundreds of new jobs as well. This is a great day for our city.”
Hammond lined up a long-vacant 20-acre site by the train station where Lear could build a factory nearly three times as large as its current one in the city.
"They couldn't get bigger at their current location," McDermott said in a phone interview Friday. "I was scared they would move and I'd have to explain why they left. We did everything we could because it's hundreds of jobs and a big deal for Hammond taxpayers."
Hammond is offering a $4 million incentive to Lear, which will add hundreds of new jobs in Hammond. McDermott said it will be the first major new factory built in Hammond since Munster Steel constructed a new plant in 2013.
"This is three times larger," he said in the phone interview. "It's a big deal. We had to fight hard for this."
The Hammond Redevelopment Commission will consider the incentive package at its Tuesday meeting.