View article on ChicagoTribune.com
By Steve Lord
Aurora Beacon-News
Published: Apr 19, 2023 at 5:17 pm
Officials from Factor told the Aurora City Council Tuesday night the company will spend at least $1 million on adjustments to its West Side facility.
The adjustments are designed to address concerns about operations that came from neighbors of the ready-made food company, which is in the former Cosmopolitan Grocery Store building at Orchard Road and Indian Trail.
The company and city officials have been working on changes to the facility for quite a while, but the company first appeared before the entire City Council last February. At that time, officials said they would report back in 45 days about changes made at the facility.
Many of the efforts addressed this week were the same the company mentioned back in February. Some have been done, some are in the works and some are yet to be done, officials said.
John Childs, Factor’s managing director, said the changes make for “more efficient yard operations.”
“We intend to make a significant investment,” he said.
Neighbors have said they have been affected by noise, vibrations, lights, air quality issues and aromas. Company officials said this week they have done studies on all those things, and have found the company in some cases did not contribute to the problems.
One area the company said it did have an impact was with noise and vibrations. Studies showed idling trucks in the back of the facility did produce “sporadic occurrences at perceptible levels,” officials said.
The company has since stopped trucks idling in the back, and has fixed parking lot conditions to help make less noise. But some of the vibration and noise comes from traffic along busy Orchard Road, officials said.
One change the company intends to make is putting a new sound barrier fence between the back of the building and the neighboring Greenfield subdivision. The slatted wooden fence that’s there right now “was never designed as a sound barrier,” a company official said.
The new fence is ordered and will be installed soon, the official said. After that, the company will look at landscaping for aesthetics.
The company already has made changes to lighting at the facility, and it also intends to install a new filtration system, even though studies showed the company was not negatively affecting air quality.
Factor 75 came to Aurora in 2020, and was purchased by Hello Fresh shortly afterward. Hello Fresh provides fresh ingredients and recipes for people to cook their own meals.
City officials said this week they first fielded complaints about Hello Fresh in May 2021, and have had meetings with neighbors and company officials since then.
“Overall, Factor and Hello Fresh really have demonstrated a commitment to being a good neighbor in the community,” the company official said.
Ald. Carl Franco, 5th Ward, said after all the efforts are in place, that “would be a good time for a community meeting” between the company, the city and neighbors.
“Maybe the end of summer, beginning of fall,” he said.