Start 18: Solo Cup Plant
Cost: $109 million

That people will always need paper cups is fairly certain. Far less assured are the plans to build the Solo Cup manufacturing and distribution plant on the southeast Chicago site formerly occupied by U.S. Steel's South Works manufacturing facility.

Plans for the plant have changed a number of times already, as a result of decisions impacting the plant's site. They are in line to morph again after Highland Park, Ill.-based Solo Cup Co. recently purchased its chief rival, Maryland-based Sweetheart Cup, said Pam McDonough, chief executive officer of Chicago-based D'Angelo-McDonough Construction Management.

The purchase, McDonough said, "almost doubled the size of the company, and the product line is much more diversified now. As you can imagine, they need to spend some time reassessing the infrastructure of both companies."

What is known is original plans called for groundbreaking on the new facility at 79th and Lake Michigan around June of this year. That followed a long remediation of the site, in which 8 to 12 ft. of fill was placed to encapsulate land environmentally compromised by years of heavy manufacturing. Remediation work was complete in June 2003, McDonough said.

Staying in Illinois

The decision to build a new plant dates to the late 1990s, when the company was nearly sweet talked into a new facility in Indiana. The offer of a plant site on the South Shore managed to head off Solo's exit and convince the company to remain in Illinois.

As originally envisioned, plant construction was to feature two phases. The first would result in a 350,000-sq.-ft. manufacturing facility, with the subsequent phase creating a 750,000-sq.-ft. distribution facility.

"The footprint changed several times, because the city has interest in having park property adjacent to the site," McDonough added.

"The proposal also includes higher-end residential, because it's right on the lake. The residential would be on the north end of the site, the plant on the south end. The footprint moved several times, as the city tried to determine where it wanted park land."

Other challenges also hampered the start of the project, she added.

"There was oil in the soil, so they put worms or bugs on the soil to eat the oil, and then they die and it goes away," she said.

"There was erosion of the seawall at 79th and the lake, so money was allocated. And we still don't have the park district's plans for where the park will be and how much land it will cover, and that's delaying the final plans for the Solo Cup manufacturing plant."

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