CHICAGO | Economic & Business Development

[bnk]

Nothing really new here but for those that can subscribe Crains lays out more numbers we already know about when taking collage percentages and the major universities adding to it.




http://www.chicagobusiness.com/artic...versity-system

March 09, 2018


In Amazon race, Illinois' trump card is its university system

By: AL BOWMAN AND TOM CROSS

...

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by left of center

^ Probably not the best thing from an innovation point of view having an out of town corporation buying all your start ups. Then again, a lot of these start ups are all about creating enough value short term in order to cash out and sell to a big tech firm... hence why many of them can keep hemorrhaging money yet constantly get new infusions of VC

Yeah, a lot of them are about it but not all. But even the ones who don't want to go to acquisition route sometimes unexpectedly do anyway. I have a friend who founded a startup here - had some levels of success and was building his own thing. Then all of a sudden BOOM - he sold the company and unless he was lying to me, he did not want to go that route. He wanted to build an empire.

[Justin_Chicago]

E-commerce site for landscapers raises $4.4 million

Fiore is building an online market to connect suppliers and landscapers nationwide. Her startup, Landscape Hub, raised $4.4 million, led by Chicago Ventures. Other investors include Hyde Park Venture Partners, Hyde Park Angels and individual investors.

Fiore is targeting what she estimates are 450,000 landscape contractors nationwide. It gets a cut of each sale made through the site. Buyers have access to more than 85 suppliers on LandscapeHub.com in 12 states. The company employs 15.

Article: http://www.chicagobusiness.com/artic...es-4-4-million

[the urban politician]

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/artic...-for-nex-group

Ahhh, finally some news from the entity that got this thread started years ago....

[IrishIllini]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/artic...-for-nex-group

Ahhh, finally some news from the entity that got this thread started years ago....

Were there ever any rumors concerning current NEX employees and their employment home base? Would the jobs stay in the UK or would CME bring them across the Atlantic?

[the urban politician]

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/artic...gos-south-side

[left of center]

Amazon search team in Chicago next week
Source: http://www.chicagobusiness.com/artic...cago-next-week

A search committee from Amazon will be in Chicago the middle of next week as part of its hunt for its location for a second headquarters that the company says will employ up to 50,000 jobs.

According to sources close to the matter, the company will meet with local civic and corporate leaders, likely on Wednesday, March 21, and tour a handful of proposed locations in the central area of the city.

City Hall has imposed a blackout on any news about the visit.

"Amazon has been running a very careful process. We have respected the integrity of that process since the beginning and will continue to do so," said spokesman Grant Klinzman. "I can tell you that we will continue to make clear to Amazon that Chicago is the ideal city for its second headquarters.

But the visit has been expected by early spring, and Amazon officials recently have toured locations in the New York City area.

Chicago is one of 20 sites around the country and in Canada on the company's short list.

Among locations being pitched to the company are areas around the Old Main Post Office and Union Station, the former Finkl Steel land on the North Side and vacant land along the river just south of Roosevelt Road where the University of Illinois is considering building an engineering innovation center.

I guess that explains the geodesic dome Related built this week? If so, lets hope it has the desired effect on the Amazon reps!

[k1052]

Should also be noted that Tim Cook is coming to town later this month as well for a product event at Lane Tech. Apple is also shopping for a 3rd campus site.

[the urban politician]

I did not know that Dallas based Southwest Airlines had Midway Airport as it’s largest hub.

I realize that OHare is a major hub for AA, although maybe not it’s biggest one.

But for Southwest Airlines, Midway is.

If I were Rahm I would do be using my peers of persuasion to get them to move their HQ here. Either a downtown HQ or a HQ near Midway Airport, the latter which would really help Rahm Politically because it would bring a lot of jobs to the south side.

Any thoughts on this?

[VKChaz]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

I did not know that Dallas based Southwest Airlines had Midway Airport as it’s largest hub.

I realize that OHare is a major hub for AA, although maybe not it’s biggest one.

But for Southwest Airlines, Midway is.

If I were Rahm I would do be using my peers of persuasion to get them to move their HQ here. Either a downtown HQ or a HQ near Midway Airport, the latter which would really help Rahm Politically because it would bring a lot of jobs to the south side.

Any thoughts on this?

Probably for some of the same reasons other companies don't just pick up and move their headquarters.

[OrdoSeclorum]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

I did not know that Dallas based Southwest Airlines had Midway Airport as it’s largest hub.

I realize that OHare is a major hub for AA, although maybe not it’s biggest one.

But for Southwest Airlines, Midway is.

If I were Rahm I would do be using my peers of persuasion to get them to move their HQ here. Either a downtown HQ or a HQ near Midway Airport, the latter which would really help Rahm Politically because it would bring a lot of jobs to the south side.

Any thoughts on this?

I don't know if you remember the Wright Amendment, but it was a law in Texas that said flights out of Love Field could only fly to neighboring states. It was a way to protect DFW. If you wanted to fly to MDW from LUV, you had to connect, by law.

Anyway, Southwest threatened to move to Chicago unless it was changed. The changed the law. Since then, Southwest has paid for major expansions in Luve and Hobby. Major Southwest investment in international flights to Latin America out of Hobby.

As someone who is forced to go to Texas quite a lot for work, I fly Southwest a lot. If you look at their flight map, it's about half to little pissant destinations in Texas. El Paso, Harlingen, Lubbock. Texas is part of Southwest's DNA. It's difficult to imagine them relocating anywhere less 10-gallon than Dallas. It would be like Exxon moving to Portland or something.

[the urban politician]

^ But Midway by far gets more flight volume

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by VKChaz

Probably for some of the same reasons other companies don't just pick up and move their headquarters.

Well, reel them in!

HQ do indeed move. Can't hurt to st least try.

After all, these southern states have been stealing jobs and companies from the north for years.

[left of center]

I remember hearing years back that MDW was Southwest's largest hub with a similar feeling of surprise, knowing that they were based in Dallas. Unlikely they will ever move though in the near future (as cool as it would be to have another airliner based in town). I'm pretty sure even the threat to move to Chicago over the Wright Amendment back in the day was more or less and empty threat, especially since leaving Texas would still not have solved the issue of flying across the country from Love Field, their primary base of operations in Texas (in addition to Hobby-Houston).

[glowrock]

Originally Posted by left of center

I remember hearing years back that MDW was Southwest's largest hub with a similar feeling of surprise, knowing that they were based in Dallas. Unlikely they will ever move though in the near future (as cool as it would be to have another airliner based in town). I'm pretty sure even the threat to move to Chicago over the Wright Amendment back in the day was more or less and empty threat, especially since leaving Texas would still not have solved the issue of flying across the country from Love Field, their primary base of operations in Texas (in addition to Hobby-Houston).

Southwest is quite the outlier in terms of overall airline hub and spoke systems, as I'm sure most of us already know around here. Yes, Dallas/Love Field, Houston Hobby and Chicago Midway are certainly their largest 'hubs', but they also have massive operations out of places as diverse as Las Vegas, Denver, Baltimore, Phoenix, Atlanta, Oakland, among a number of others. I'd guess that Southwest has the largest number of "super-regional hubs" if you will, because they really aren't necessarily traditional hubs at all, rather part of a network where the majority of their flights are less than 3 hours per segment.

Regardless, I do agree that there's no chance in hell they'd move their HQ to Chicago. Too Texas-centric, and they more or less control the legislature to boot.

Aaron (Glowrock)

[Justin_Chicago]

Lake Forest pharma complex attracts another HQ

A Newark, Calif.-based pharmaceutical company, Depomed, is relocating its headquarters to north suburban Lake Forest and bringing new jobs to the area.

The company announced today it has signed a lease for its new corporate headquarters in the Landmark Conway Farms complex in Lake Forest. The same complex houses Abbott Nutrition and Horizon Pharma. The new headquarters will accommodate about 70 employees, many of which will be new hires from the area, according to a statement.

Depomed anticipates to be officially operational in the new headquarters this summer. During the construction phase, the company will operate out of temporary space within the same building.

"The location, being in close proximity to a growing number of specialty pharmaceutical companies, will allow us to attract and retain the talent needed to take the company to the next level," said Arthur Higgins, the pharma company's president and CEO, in a release.

Article: http://www.chicagobusiness.com/artic...pharma-complex

[the urban politician]

^ Yay and...

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/artic...es-another-80m

Yay

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

^ Yay and...

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/artic...es-another-80m

Yay

Doubled headcount in just 18 months - +200 people. This round of funding may allow them to double again in that period of time. Very nice..

[Via Chicago]

Lefkofsky/Keywell ventures all follow the same pattern. expand rapidly in a "tech" company (i use the term loosely) mostly based on smoke and mirrors, go public, then cash out right before the whole thing implodes. wash/rinse/repeat.

dudes a charlatan. its incredible anyone still falls for it.

[Kngkyle]

Off to a good start....

Chicago hotel performance for the first two months of 2018 saw record growth in demand and occupancy. For the combined months of January and February hotel demand, representing the number of room nights sold, was up 12.5 percent. The record volume helped push an overall occupancy increase of 7.3 percent.

The number of people visiting Chicago for both business and leisure increased significantly in the first two months of 2018. Rooms sold associated with Group and Meetings business was up 32.8 percent in the first two months while Leisure visitor rooms consumed increased 5.9 percent - both record growth for the period.

January and February’s strong visitor numbers were driven in part by a series of major meetings and conventions hosted in the city. There were two major conventions meeting in Chicago for the very first time as well as three large meetings convening at McCormick Place this year that were not part of the meetings line up in 2017.

https://www.cityofchicago.org/city/e...smRecords.html