Belvidere, Illinois Recognized in National Shovel Awards

The State of Illinois was awarded a Silver Shovel in the 19th Annual Area Development Gold & Silver Shovel Awards, with Belvidere's Walmart Perishable Distribution Center project being named a ‘Non-Manufacturing Project of the Year.'

Read the excerpt, below, from Area Development's article.

The Silver Shovels States with population of more than 12 million

A highlight of the Silver Shovel earned by Illinois is a $2 billion EV battery project in Manteno, one of our Projects of the Year. Gotion is working on a gigafactory that’ll create 2,600 jobs and is, according to the governor, the state’s most significant new manufacturing investment in decades (its dollar total is more than a third of the overall value of all of Illinois’ biggest projects of the past year). Meanwhile, Walmart is spending more than a billion dollars on a high-tech, automated distribution center in Belvidere for perishables such as eggs, dairy, fresh produce, flowers and frozen food. In the agricultural hotspot of Decatur, Warwick Carbon Solutions is investing a billion dollars in a first-of-its kind power and steam plant. It’ll work with ADM’s carbon capture capabilities to handle most of the carbon dioxide emissions. In DeKalb, Kraft Heinz is investing in one of the continent’s largest consumer packaged goods distribution centers, while US Foods is building in the Chicago suburb of Aurora. Other Illinois wins include projects from CJ Logistics, Target, GE Appliances and CoreWeave. Silver Shovel winner New York, meanwhile, has a Project of the Year in Fairlife’s new production facility in Webster worth two-thirds of a billion dollars. Fairlife is now a part of Coca-Cola, and it’s bringing its ultra-filtered milk products to more of the Northeast. Another dairy producer adding jobs in New York is HP Hood, expanding capacity at its Batavia facility, and Wells Enterprises is growing in Dunkirk to keep up with ice cream demand. Cummins is pumping nearly a half billion dollars into its Jamestown engine plant that last year produced its 2.5 millionth engine—the company is focused on lower-carbon engines. New York has a diverse range of projects on its list, including Regeneron Pharmaceuticals’ plan to establish a biomedical research facility in Suffern, Schrödinger Inc.’s life sciences headquarters growth in New York City, the BETA Technologies aerospace expansion at the Plattsburgh International Airport, plus significant projects in both microelectronics and software.

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