Leadership from Elion Partners and General Mills gathered this morning with Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner and Senator Sue Rezin to commemorate the opening of General Mills’ new distribution and customer service center within the RidgePort Logistics Center development in Wilmington, Illinois. Owned by Elion Partners, RidgePort Logistics Center is currently the largest planned rail-served industrial park focused on incorporating mixed-use transportation services within the park.  The new General Mills distribution center located 40 miles southwest of Chicago accounts for 1.5 million SF of the overall development which is located near major transportation channels including BNSF and Union Pacific rail lines and interstates 80 and 55. The entire RidgePort Logistics Center is more than 30 million SF of potential space, 5.4 million SF of developed space, and 810,000 SF currently in the works. “The Wilmington customer service facility will be a key addition, and a critical location for the General Mills’ distribution network,” said Mike Nordstrom, General Mills Vice President for Global Workplace Solutions. “From this location, we will deliver top-selling cereals, snacks and other products to customers across America.” “The vision for RidgePort’s phased development focuses not only on the infrastructure and location, but on service to the trucking profession,” said Shlomo Khoudari, Co-founder and Managing Principal at Elion Partners. “The Chicagoland market is the nation’s prime location to streamline and optimize regional and national logistics,” he adds. “Delivering a mixed-use logistics center to tenants like General Mills aligns the park with the continued changes in the transportation industry.”  Area industries that are anticipated to benefit the most include warehousing, trucking, retail and rail transportation. The mixed-use vision at the RidgePort Logistics Center development represents an industry-leading concept that focuses on the trucking and warehouse employees for both support and services. These services are both current offerings and planned services in the next two phases of the development at the center.