Mayor Lori E. Lightfoot joined Alderman Susan Sadlowski Garza (10thWard), State Representative Marcus Evans, Jr., (33rdDistrict), Tony Reinhart, Regional Director for Community & Government Affairs for Ford Motor Company, and Nathanial Hagedorn, Founder and CEO of NorthPoint Development to open the first phase and break ground on the next phase of the Commerce Park Chicago industrial campus. Located on the site of the former Republic Steel plant in the Hegewisch neighborhood, the $164 million 200-acre industrial park will house 2.3 million-square-feet of light manufacturing, assembly and logistics space on the city’s far Southeast Side.  Commerce Park Chicago currently supports 500 construction jobs and once complete will bring up to 1,400 permanent jobs to the City’s Southeast side.  Republic Steel’s Chicago plant began operations in 1910 and by the 1970s employed nearly 6,000 people. By the 1980s, less expensive, imported steel became more popular, and the plant, which once produced over 400,000 tons of steel annually closed permanently in 2001 and has remained vacant for nearly 20 years.  Ford Motor Company is Commerce Park’s first tenant and will use the completed 360,000 square-foot building on South Avenue O for pre-assembly work on components that will be delivered to its nearby Chicago Assembly Plant on Torrence Avenue, which was also developed by NorthPoint.