A rendering of a 760,000-square-foot warehouse underway in Matteson. (Crow Industrial Holdings)

Matteson is landing another large warehouse center, with a Texas-based company that builds more than 10 million square feet of industrial space across the country every year underway constructing a 760,000-square-foot project.

Elected officials took part in a ceremonial groundbreaking Friday for Crow Holdings Industrial’s Matteson 57 Commerce Center.

Using construction techniques not seen in the Chicago area for such industrial development in years, the company expects the building, just east of Interstate 57, to be ready by next spring.

“It addresses our regional need for more logistical companies to land here in the Southland,” Matteson Mayor Sheila Chalmers-Currin said.

She said the project is tucked behind a Menards home improvement store off Cicero Avenue and not near any homes, so there won’t be any negative impact on the surrounding community.

The developer is a unit of Dallas-based Crow Holdings Development, which, along with light industrial, develops residential and office properties.

Crow has built massive warehouse projects around the Chicago area, including in southwest suburban Bolingbrook and Channahon. The Matteson project is the company’s first industrial development in south Cook County, according to Jack Rabenn, a development associate with Crow, who said that scarcity of developable land was a factor in bringing the project to Matteson.

Chalmers-Currin and the company said the development diversifies and expands Matteson’s tax base, but unlike a residential development won’t put a strain on schools.

Crow officials said a traffic analysis shows the roads are sufficient for supporting the traffic the project is expected to generate.

The $70 million commerce center will have access to I-57 from U.S. 30 to the north and Sauk Trail to the south.

The building will have 100 exterior loading docks, 380 car parking stalls and 210 truck trailer parking stalls, according to Crow.

The property is speculative, meaning the developer does not have a tenant lined up, but Rabenn said “we’re already getting some interest from potential tenants.”

He said the company envisions one tenant, but said the building could be split to accommodate two users.

“We’re not likely going any smaller than that,” Rabenn said.

Crow expects the property to be a fit for a bulk warehouse and distribution tenant, and would be a regional distribution hub.

Rabenn said that real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield made Crow aware of the property, and he said that other suburban areas are pretty much built out as far as warehouse uses, calling south Cook County “the next frontier for industrial development.”

Compared with the collar counties, however, the drawback for developers picking a Cook County site has remained the property tax disadvantage.

The previous owner of the land, used for growing soybeans, had obtained a property tax break from Cook County that reduces the site’s assessed value to the same level that homes are assessed at, Rabenn said.

The property is also in an enterprise zone which offers savings on sales taxes for construction materials used, Rabenn said.

Crow did not seek any other financial incentives to build the warehouse, he said.

Typically, such large buildings rely on precast concrete panels, constructed off-site and shipped to the work site, but supply chain issues meant that relying on precast would mean delaying completion of the Matteson job until early 2024, he said.

The general contractor, Pepper Construction, is using tilt-wall, construction, a method that hasn’t been employed in the Chicago area in many years, Rabenn said. The panels are poured at the job site in frames, then lifted, or tilted, into position, he said.

“From a construction standpoint, they are both structural concrete panels,” he said.

Using that method, however, accelerates the construction of the Matteson project, Rabenn said.

He said the Matteson site was also favorable because it is close to a large labor pool.

“That was a huge plus here,” he said.