(a) A participating municipality may acquire, erect, construct, reconstruct, improve, maintain, and operate one or more, or a combination or combinations of, industrial buildings, office buildings, buildings to be used as a factory, mill shops, processing plants, packaging plants, assembly plants, fabricating plants, and buildings to be used as warehouses and other storage facilities.
     (b) A participating municipality may acquire and accept by purchase, lease, gift, grant, or otherwise any property and rights useful for its purposes and to provide for the development of channels, ports, harbors, port facilities, terminal facilities, and any other building or facility that the Port District has the power to acquire, construct, reconstruct, extend, or improve to serve the needs of commerce within the municipality’s portion of the Port District. A participating municipality may acquire real or personal property or any rights in real or personal property in the manner, as near as may be, as is provided for the exercise of the right of eminent domain under the Eminent Domain Act, except that: (i) no rights or property of any kind or character owned, leased, controlled, or operated and used by, or necessary for the actual operations of, any common carrier engaged in interstate commerce, or of any other public utility subject to the jurisdiction of the Illinois Commerce Commission, shall be taken or appropriated by a participating municipality without first obtaining the approval of the Illinois Commerce Commission; and (ii) no property owned by a participating municipality shall be taken or appropriated for facilities within a participating municipality’s corporate limits without the approval of the city council of the participating municipality.