Waukegan hoping to benefit from Great Lakes economic plan

Plans to bring millions of jobs and hundreds of thousands of new businesses to the Great Lakes region, and along the St. Lawrence River leading into it from the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Atlantic Ocean in the next 10 years are poised to help Waukegan and northeast Lake County.

With plans to create a fresh coast economic corridor to spur business, ecological and social growth in the vast area from the Atlantic, up the river and through the Great Lakes to the Chicago area, potential benefits exist.

“This partnership will lead to an economic transformation,” said Waukegan Mayor Sam Cunningham, who is part of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative’s Mayors Commission on Economic Transformation. “The development along Lake Michigan will be sustainable.”

The Great Lakes and St.