Can steel mill history become quantum future at former South Works site?

The question of what to do with the empty former U.S. Steel South Works site has been a 500-acre albatross around the city's neck for more than 30 years.

Located right on the lake at 79th Street, the site seemed to have all the development potential in the world. But years of efforts to turn the once-industrial area into an exciting new waterfront neighborhood all came and went — even after the city spent millions to extend U.S. 41 through the site, and build 70-acre Park 566 and 16-acre Steelworkers Park there.

But now it looks as if the South (Works) will rise again under a new plan announced last week by Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Mayor Brandon Johnson to build a quantum computer manufacturing and research campus on the site.

Pritzker said the campus will be a "global leader" in the quantum computer industry. And Johnson said the project will be "life-changing for not just this region of the city, the city of Chicago as a whole, but [also for] the global economy around technology.”

Will wave of the future bear economic fruit?

Quantum computing uses large sophisticated computers that can solve problems faster and more accurately than conventional ones, which use binary sequences.

According to experts, these new computers can better handle the kind of complex computations needed to create thing such as breakthrough drugs.

PsiQuantum, of Palo Alto, California, would be the campus's anchor tenant. Once the company is set up there, PsiQuantum would work on building the country's first commercially useful quantum computer.

Earlier this month, Pritzker announced a partnership between the state and the U.S. Department of Defense’s research and development agency to expand quantum research in Illinois.

As part of the alliance, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, would join PsiQuantum on the campus and would run a program for testing quantum computing prototypes.

"We’re the only state that put forward a quantum campus and quantum plan," Pritzker said. "And the federal government stepping up and becoming an important partner, particularly DARPA, is a lot of validation."

But none of this comes cheaply. Pritzker’s 2025 budget sets aside $500 million for quantum research with $300 million dedicated toward creating the campus at South Works.

Meanwhile, funding from Johnson’s $1.25 billion economic development and housing bond issue will go toward the campus project.

And there is also a move afoot to get the county to make the site eligible for Class 8 property tax incentives — aimed at encouraging industrial and commercial development in economically depressed areas — that would cut the campus’s industrial property tax assessment from 25% for industrial properties to 10% for 10 years.

PsiQuantum alone would get $500 million in city, state and county incentives over the course of $30 years.

City Hall says all this public investment will yield $20 billion in economic impact over the next decade and create more than 175,000 jobs in quantum computing.

We're always skeptical of economic development projections, which tend to be rosier than the propagation houses at the Garfield Park Conservatory.

But if South Works is to be redeveloped at all, it will take some hefty public subsidy to get it done.

Benefits for South Chicago, too

The South Chicago neighborhood, particularly the subset known as "The Bush," which was located close to the old steel plant, could use a shot in the arm such as the quantum campus.

The historic area depended on U.S. Steel and the other mills for its livelihood for much of the 20th century and suffered greatly when the industry was suddenly ripped away in the 1970s and 1980s.

We'd like to see residents and voices from the community given a proper space at the table as the plans develop, and, most importantly, a share of the jobs that will come out of this project.

Judging from the renderings, the site's two public parks will remain — and that is good also.

Time will tell whether all this comes to fruition. But for now, the quantum campus plan looks like just the kind of transformative, large-scale, potentially jobs-rich effort neighborhoods such as South Chicago, and the city itself, need.

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