CHICAGO | Economic & Business Development

[the urban politician]

Trading firm bulks up on West Loop office space
Don Wilson's DRW Holdings signals the importance of in-person work with one of the largest downtown office expansions since the pandemic began.
DANNY ECKER

Don Wilson's trading firm has expanded its West Loop headquarters, making room for a Chicago workforce it has beefed up during the pandemic and plans to keep growing with close to 80 more jobs.

Wilson's DRW Holdings has leased more than 60,000 square feet across two floors at 540 W. Madison St., the company confirmed, a move that brings the company's total footprint in the building close to 200,000 square feet. DRW added the building's 28th floor to its existing space on the three floors below and also picked up a portion of the 31-story building's fifth floor.

The lease completes one of the largest expansions of downtown office space since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Many companies re-evaluating their workspace needs with the rise of remote work over the past two years have sought to shrink their office footprints, driving downtown office vacancy to a record high in 2021.

But DRW is part of the crop of companies making statements about their commitment to in-person office work and taking advantage of a soft market for landlords.

https://www.chicagobusiness.com/comm...m-drw-holdings

[tjp]

^ Nice! I'm hearing more and more of my friends being required to be in the office at least a couple days. The loop was noticeably busier within the last week.

[the urban politician]

Hey, what can ya say?

Logistics software company FarEye announces Chicago office hub

February 07, 2022, 02:07pm CST
An Indian logistics software company with more than $150 million in funding is making Chicago its North American headquarters as its top executives have relocated here from India.

FarEye, a last-mile logistics software company, said Monday that it's establishing its Chicago office on Wacker Drive as its North American headquarters.

https://www.bizjournals.com/chicago/...go-office.html

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

Hey, what can ya say?



https://www.bizjournals.com/chicago/...go-office.html

Maybe I should be a journalist afterall. News moves slowly huh? I wrote this back in June

Originally Posted by marothisu

There's a company listed on sites like Crunchbase and LinkedIn ("Primary") as being HQ'd in Chicago (River North) that just got $100M funding called FarEye. Looking more into this, they're actually based near Delhi, India but it looks like they opened up their US HQ in Chicago with the co-founder heading it up, sometime late last year or this year.

They are a tech company in the whole delivery, logistics, supply chain, etc space for which Chicago now has had a lot of funding success.

Really curious if they might even be in the process of moving HQ from Delhi to Chicago. No idea but it's curious..

[sentinel]

Not Chicago-specific per se, just released by the Chicago Fed - seems like a rather large piece of the inflation puzzle:

Record job-switching rates are pushing U.S. inflation higher, Chicago Fed study finds
By Jonnelle Marte

Feb 14 (Reuters) - "The unprecedented level of job switching seen last year as the U.S. labor market rebounded from the pandemic gave workers more leverage to ask for better pay and played a role in pushing inflation to its highest level in decades, a new study suggests.

An increase in the share of people who searched for jobs while they were employed helped boost inflation by about 1 percentage point throughout much of last year, according to a paper released on Monday by the Chicago Federal Reserve. That suggests job-switching at times accounted for roughly 20% of the price growth seen in 2021..."

https://www.reuters.com/business/rec...dy-2022-02-14/

[marothisu]

^ I'm not even surprised. I moved to Chicago with my NYC salary and was convinced that I wouldn't get a raise because of the difference in COL levels between the 2 places. Nope, I still got a raise with my NYC salary while living in Chicago. Things have really pushed up of late. Hired someone senior not long ago in Chicago too at a $$ level which we'd hire at previously in NYC just a few years ago...

[galleyfox]

Originally Posted by tjp

^ Nice! I'm hearing more and more of my friends being required to be in the office at least a couple days. The loop was noticeably busier within the last week.

The January Loop report was just released, and the climb toward normal resumes. There was a week of hysteria about Omicron, and then people got over it. January 2019 had shit weather so many of the current stats look normal.


https://loopchicago.com/in-the-loop/...y-in-the-loop/

[bnk]

Metra at 19%!!! OMG that horrible. I used to remember standing room only for some rides.

[Chi-Sky21]

When it switches it will switch fast. There will be plenty of people about to be made to come back into work. I am one and know many others that are starting to open offices, seem all targeted towards spring.

[thegoatman]

Obviously CTA will still be productive, but I worry for Metra. I think Covid and WFH will kill metra. CTA is slowly climbing up. Add security to the trains and clean the trains up and ridership will skyrocket past 75%. metra tho?

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by Chi-Sky21

When it switches it will switch fast. There will be plenty of people about to be made to come back into work. I am one and know many others that are starting to open offices, seem all targeted towards spring.

One of my employees who lives in a northern/nw ish suburb told me their Metra last week was packed. But another who lives in a nearby suburb but on a different line said his was really empty.

[SIGSEGV]

Originally Posted by marothisu

One of my employees who lives in a northern/nw ish suburb told me their Metra last week was packed. But another who lives in a nearby suburb but on a different line said his was really empty.

Metra Electric hasn't been packed, but usually not too empty either (although I'm a reverse commuter...).

[galleyfox]

Originally Posted by marothisu

One of my employees who lives in a northern/nw ish suburb told me their Metra last week was packed. But another who lives in a nearby suburb but on a different line said his was really empty.

Metra is a tough one.

I’ve never been that worried about the Loop because much of the economic activity was driven by travelers staying in hotels and city residents going shopping. Which is why State St. pedestrian traffic and CTA ridership is much closer to normal even without suburban commuters.

Metra is not hopeless, but Southwest, North Central, and Heritage Corridor service almost certainly have to be cut. The Milwaukee district lines were also iffy.

Metra Electric, Rock Island and UP-N likely have a similar ridership % to CTA right now. City neighborhoods without nearby L lines and larger satellite cities have more people who use the Metra for errands instead of just commuting.



2021 Ridership — % of 2019

BNSF — 300,477 — 23.9%

Metra Electric — 219,274 — 34.6%

UP-N — 212,115 — 30.6%

UP-NW — 210,684 — 25.0%

RI — 184,459 — 30.9%

UP-W — 170,640 — 26.7%

MD-N — 127,397 — 24.1%

MD-W — 118,162 — 24.7%

SWS — 39,592 — 20.4%

NCS — 21,227 — 16.5%

HC — 10,596 — 17.3%

[SIGSEGV]

Originally Posted by galleyfox

Metra is not hopeless, but Southwest, North Central, and Heritage Corridor service almost certainly have to be cut. The Milwaukee district lines were also iffy.

Those services are already bare-bones, not much left to cut. They're doing so poorly because they're useless for anything but 9-5 commuting.

[Chi-Sky21]

Heritage corridor has always had few trains and really bad departure times so no shocker there.

[aaron38]

Originally Posted by Chi-Sky21

When it switches it will switch fast. There will be plenty of people about to be made to come back into work. I am one and know many others that are starting to open offices, seem all targeted towards spring.

Personally I'm worried about that. Just lost another engineer who's been promised "work for us, stay home forever". He won't be getting on Metra.

One of my best friends called me last night in a panic because he didn't want to go into a restaurant and be around other people. He couldn't make himself get out of the car. I had to talk him down.
Two years of panic doesn't just go away. People are broken and hurting. There are likely millions of people who will not go back to pre-covid normal. They just will not.

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by aaron38

One of my best friends called me last night in a panic because he didn't want to go into a restaurant and be around other people. He couldn't make himself get out of the car. I had to talk him down.
Two years of panic doesn't just go away. People are broken and hurting. There are likely millions of people who will not go back to pre-covid normal. They just will not.

Exactly what I've been talking about on this forum. Very sad.

I had a patient (40 year old man, healthy, no problems) break out crying because his employer wanted him to start returning to in person work downtown. Literally--a grown man balling right in front of me.

What can I say? I've said my peace on this topic around here, it's up to society to fucking get a grip. But I also worry deeply about Metra. As people have argued since SSP has been around, Metra is an invaluable system for Chicago, and it MUST be saved. But people need to use it!

[the urban politician]

I don't know what to make of this article but I thought I'd share it:

I launched my startup in San Francisco. Now we're moving our HQ to Chicago — here's why.
Vitaly Alexandrov Feb 16, 2022, 7:00 AM


My company initially started as a tech startup called Foody that helped simplify how restaurants order their inventory. Once the pandemic hit, I felt it was time to pivot, and we decided to relaunch as Food Rocket, a 15-minute grocery delivery service.

Since then, we've been holding our own in San Francisco against competitors like DoorDash and GoPuff. Despite our growth in Silicon Valley, in December I decided we would relocate HQ to Chicago in 2022.

California put us on the map, but Chicago will keep us there

California is an amazing state. The weather is gorgeous, the people are lovely, and everyone is keen to try the next tech trend, which makes it an ideal place for a startup like ours.

We couldn't have asked for a better place to get our start than San Francisco, because the city and its people have taught us so much. But as our team of more than 70 continues to grow, we're ready to expand into new markets.

While San Francisco is still the king of startups, many investors and companies are migrating to other emerging markets like Austin, Tampa, and Raleigh, and I think it's important to make our move sooner rather than later.

After a lot of research, I decided to move Food Rocket HQ to Chicago
We did extensive market research before settling on Chicago. As one of the largest cities in the US, Chicago is a great place for any emerging business. For Food Rocket specifically as a grocery delivery company, the city's population density can help us understand how consumers buy groceries and how we can offer delivery services based on their preferences.

Chicagoans have different wants and needs than San Franciscans, which means that we'll also have an opportunity to learn the demands of a new local market. We want to change the way America grocery shops, so I think it's essential for our team to experience different areas of the country to learn how to cater to and succeed in various regions.

Real estate is also cheaper in Chicago, which will allow us to open more dark stores for our delivery operations and expand farther than we could have in San Francisco. Our overall operating costs will be lower, so we'll also be able to offer more competitive pricing for Chicago customers.

There's no mandatory requirement for employee relocation with our HQ move, as many of our employees already currently work remotely, but some employees have said they do plan to move with us. Remote employees directly involved in operations understand that I expect them to visit Chicago periodically to become familiar with the people and market, so it will also be a convenient central location.

Overall, Chicago is an important part of our long-term business strategy
Because the city is so different from San Francisco, it's almost like an entirely new business model, which is exciting for us. Since we're no longer a startup, we also wanted to explore a non-startup city environment.

For other entrepreneurs considering an HQ move, focus on finding a location that has the most benefits for your business. Choosing someplace trendy might sound fun, but in the end if you're making a big move, make sure it's to a place where your business will thrive.

Vitaly Alexandrov is the founder and CEO of Food Rocket, a food-tech startup that offers 15-minute grocery delivery.

https://www.businessinsider.com/movi...chicago-2022-2

[k1052]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

Exactly what I've been talking about on this forum. Very sad.

I had a patient (40 year old man, healthy, no problems) break out crying because his employer wanted him to start returning to in person work downtown. Literally--a grown man balling right in front of me.

What can I say? I've said my peace on this topic around here, it's up to society to fucking get a grip. But I also worry deeply about Metra. As people have argued since SSP has been around, Metra is an invaluable system for Chicago, and it MUST be saved. But people need to use it!

Commuter RRs should have switched to clock face scheduling and away from peak oriented. Commuter traffic will come back but I very strongly doubt it will hit previous levels. The model needs to adjust to find new ridership.

[twister244]

Originally Posted by Chi-Sky21

When it switches it will switch fast. There will be plenty of people about to be made to come back into work. I am one and know many others that are starting to open offices, seem all targeted towards spring.

I think that's a very very very overly optimistic take on things. The needle continues to move towards people wanting to work remotely permanently. I'm not suggesting that the Loop is "doomed", but if you think people are all just magically going to start commuting back into the loop for more than a few days a week.... You are out of touch with the continued momentum to remote work.

My company has given no indication of forcing people into an office, and I find it unlikely they ever will again given how spread out our workers are. I really think office buildings in the city will have to get creative to attract workers in. Whether that's more WeWorks for people to just come in and work with co-workers (or alone amongst social people), or companies doing more to give folks an incentive to come in.

Because the alternative is going to be:
Company Management - "Alright - Everyone needs to get back into the office at least a few days a week."
Employees - "Fuck you - I'm going to go work for this company over here that has office work being completely optional and flexible."

The flood gates have been opened, and you can't undo what's been done. People got too much exposure to remote work to go back. Companies will need to adapt, along with office spaces.