Businesses with longtime ties to Chicago's South Side or suburbs expanding or moving to Indiana is not new.
Some business owners cited the population shift as a reason to follow their clientele into Lake County. Some say personal and corporate income tax increases approved recently by the Illinois General Assembly to close a $15 billion budget gap could make them shift even more.
Tom Ustanik Jr., whose family opened Lansing Cleaners in 1946, said he has "kicked around the idea" of relocating the company restoration business, which cleans fire-damaged items, from Lansing to Indiana.
That would put it near most Lansing Cleaners sites in Dyer, Highland, Munster and St. John, in addition to the Illinois locations in Lansing and South Holland, the latter of which Ustanik said could close.
"A lot of our clientele moved to Indiana and we wanted to follow them," said Ustanik, who moved with his wife from Lansing to Dyer. "These taxes may make us move even more."
Bob Scheuneman, an owner of DeYoung Interiors in St. John, operated for 69 years as DeYoung & Sons Furniture on Ridge Road in downtown Lansing. The company still operates a "clearance center" at the Ridge Road site, selling cheap furniture items only on Fridays and Saturdays.
Scheuneman wants to sell the Lansing property and expects income tax increases will discourage buyers.
"It's going to make it harder to sell because some people just aren't going to want to deal with those tax rates," he said.
Ustanik said the tax rate is not the only reason he shifted to Lake County, where Lansing Cleaners opened its first Indiana store in 1964.
He can run through a laundry list of tax-related complaints: Workers' compensation, insurance rates and utility bills are lower in Indiana.
Ustanik said property taxes for the Lansing location, 18220 Torrence Ave., went up 88 percent for the plot with the restoration facility and 104 percent for the parking lot space.
"The property taxes are just getting ridiculous," Ustanik said. "That's not the state's doing, but somebody needs to do something to bring those taxes under control."
In 2007, Joe Danielle turned 20-year-old Pepino's Pizza on Sibley Boulevard in Calumet City into Pepino's Restaurant and Deli, 2410 Ontario St., Schererville.
"Those high property taxes were just too much," Danielle said. "We're doing so much better here."
He said the tax structure in Illinois will hurt businesses such as his because "right now with the economy, our (profit) margins are down. If you add a higher tax to that, it hurts even more."
Scheuneman said his business shifted to Indiana because of open land around DeYoung's site on U.S. 41. His Lansing operation was landlocked.
"We opened in St. John because we saw the kind of business growth taking place. In Lansing, there just wasn't a lot of (construction) taking place in that area, not compared to St. John," Scheuneman said.
"We're in the fashion business in one of the fastest-growing parts of Indiana," he said. "There just isn't any comparison.