CHICAGO | Economic & Business Development

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by Kngkyle

I get that this Boeing case is a little unique and Lightfoot nor Rahm could have likely done anything to stop it, but my point was more in general. What has Lightfoot done to attract business to Chicago? What has Lightfoot done to improve transit in Chicago? What has Lightfoot done to strengthen the economic engine of our region?

I'm listening.

I get that there wasn't a better alternative in the previous election and it doesn't look like there is going to be a better alternative in the next election, so we are likely stuck with what we got. But what we got ain't good.

This conversation is about Boeing. And even a few people who don't support this mayor responded to you and stated that it has nothing to do with that, and has everything to do with Boeing wanting tax breaks. Kind of weird now you want to divert the discussion about Boeing to something that really has nothing to do with it.

[Kngkyle]

Originally Posted by marothisu

This conversation is about Boeing. And even a few people who don't support this mayor responded to you and stated that it has nothing to do with that, and has everything to do with Boeing wanting tax breaks. Kind of weird now you want to divert the discussion about Boeing to something that really has nothing to do with it.

Oh sorry, I thought this was the Economic & Business Development thread.

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by Kngkyle

Oh sorry, I thought this was the Economic & Business Development thread.

Sure, but you are still responding to the same thread after everyone including anti-Lightfoot people have said it has nothing to do with anything. And you still want to talk about it in the context of Boeing. Just find it a little weird because if you didn't believe it had nothing to do with Lightfoot, you wouldn't have brought it up. And even after everyone says "no..." you still want to talk about it even after recognizing that Lightfoot, Rahm, etc might not have been able to stop it regardless.

[Kngkyle]

Originally Posted by marothisu

Sure, but you are still responding to the same thread after everyone including anti-Lightfoot people have said it has nothing to do with anything. And you still want to talk about it in the context of Boeing. Just find it a little weird because if you didn't believe it had nothing to do with Lightfoot, you wouldn't have brought it up. And even after everyone says "no..." you still want to talk about it even after recognizing that Lightfoot, Rahm, etc might not have been able to stop it regardless.

I don't even know what point you are trying to make anymore. I even agreed with you....

[F1 Tommy]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

this is not LL's doing.

rumors of boeing moving their HQ again have been swirling for some time now.

their meager HQ C-suite footprint here in the windy always felt rather tenuous at best. they slapped their logo up on a building along the river, they did a few "good corporate citizen" sponsorships, and otherwise had a pretty minimal impact on this town's overall worth other than a CTB bragging rights feather in the cap.

And given the company's numerous recent failings, maybe we're better off no longer being associated with the brand.

That is sort of true, but it will be a negative for Chicago that they are leaving. Now if they had brought some high tech manufacturing to the table adding thousands of high paying jobs that would have been better but they always had an excuse not to. I pointed out Wichita is land locked and they are fine with building aerospace equipment there.

Also they are farther away from Washington State with this move, and they don't like their west coast unions very much. Also they are closer to DC for obvious lobbying reasons.

[sixo1]

Originally Posted by animositisomina

Boeing never really had a large presence in Illinois/Chicago. I know the jobs here are/were all high-paying executive positions, but they have a larger presence in 10+ other states. I was hoping they'd add more manufacturing jobs here and outside of adding a few in the Metro East 10 years ago, they never really expanded their presence in the state in the past 20+ years following the HQ move.

Note: Last year Boeing announced they will build a new assembly plant in Metro East to produce the MQ-25 Stingray, the U.S. Navy's first carrier-based unmanned aircraft.

Source

[ardecila]

I mean, if your business is so big that your biggest concern is government regulation, then it makes sense to cozy up to the government and put your HQ where the regulators are. Same reason Amazon moved to DC/NoVa.

There are reasons for DC's growth beyond just government, though. For companies and residents alike, you get to literally straddle the line between the Northeast (big dynamic cities, lots of amenities, quality of life, great infrastructure) and the Sunbelt (low taxes, low regulation, reasonably-priced housing).

[F1 Tommy]

The big companies with big government contracts will always flock to the blood bank or DC. And the weather is not that much better than Chicago. They get alot of crappy weather also and even hotter more humid summers.

[the urban politician]

^ The weather is way better than Chicago

Is it Florida or southern Cali? No.

But the winters are far milder

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

^ The weather is way better than Chicago

Is it Florida or southern Cali? No.

But the winters are far milder

Winters are definitely better in DC and milder. Summers I'd say are better here only because it's a little less humid and a little less warm. It can truly get pretty bad there in the summers in that perspective. Chicago at least has a giant body of water right next to it where you could actually get a little cooler on those bad summer days. The Potomac riverfront can be nice in a few areas but it's not close to the same.

Guess it depends on what you want, but IMO both kind of even out. I'll take DC's winters over the drab ones here any day but I'd take the summers here over the DC ones any day too.

[the urban politician]

Summer in Chicago is one of the best places on Earth, frankly. Not just because of the weather (sans mosquitos), but because so much is going on.

[ChiSoxRox]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

Summer in Chicago is one of the best places on Earth, frankly. Not just because of the weather (sans mosquitos), but because so much is going on.

Absolutely. The mild summers, city amenities, rail infrastructure, and lovely architecture is why I am currently looking for a post graduation position, with Chicago the top of the list.

[jboy560]

A little dated, but still a positive list I came across today. According to LinkedIn, Chicago was rated #12 for hiring and open positions during 2021. It’s the top ranked in the Midwest and increased its ranking.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/looki...-george-anders

[the urban politician]

Yay, top in the midwest!

[BrinChi]

Well - NYC, LA, Houston, Dallas, Philadelphia (i.e. the other big cities in the U.S.) didn't even make the list. So that's something.

[marothisu]

Not bad for a supposedly dying city that's been the "next Detroit" for the last 12+ years.

[bnk]

https://therealdeal.com/chicago/2022...s-record-high/

Chicago industrial inventory collapses to record low, development sets record high

Vacancy of only 2.6% in big box buildings of 200,000 sf or larger


Chicago /

May 20, 2022 03:17 PM

By Sam Lounsberry





Chicago’s supply of industrial real estate keeps shrinking, setting new record lows.

With so much unmet demand for warehousing and logistics operations, competition for spaces in big box buildings is tougher than ever. Industrial tenants sunk the Chicago area’s vacancy rate in buildings of at least 200,000 square feet to just 2.6 percent in the first quarter, a historic low, Colliers found.

The fourth quarter vacancy rate of 3.7 percent fell by more than a quarter to start 2022, and the measure is down from 8.2 percent year-over-year. New leasing totaled 9.7 million square feet in the first quarter with Amazon taking the two largest deals at over 1 million square feet each in Joliet and Kenosha facilities.

The imbalance in the market is putting pressure on developers such as Aaron Martell’s Logistics Property, the recent buyer of $90 million in local real estate including a Goose Island parcel where the company is planning Chicago’s first two-story warehouse among the 1.7 million square feet of projects it has underway in the area.

“No one with industrial experience over the last 30 years would have predicted this environment for demand,” Martell told The Real Deal.

In the most concentrated submarket, supply is even thinner. Almost half of the area’s big box product is in the Interstate 80 Joliet and Interstate 55 corridors. Vacancies in those two pockets respectively dropped to “previously unfathomable” levels of 1.5 percent and 0.7 percent, Colliers said.

Developers are reacting, setting records for the development pipeline in the first quarter with 44 buildings totaling 23.7 million square feet underway.

“Developers have been pushing to secure financing and materials to develop new speculative projects to meet demand,” Colliers said. “This trend is expected to only accelerate due to the tight market, with dozens of buildings being announced each month.”

[bnk]

https://www.bizjournals.com/chicago/...cago-jobs.html

Google added hundreds of Chicago jobs last year

The tech giant's local headcount grows to nearly 2,000 as it added 500 employees in 2021



By Jim Dallke - Senior Editor, Chicago Inno

May 20, 2022, 01:42pm CDT



Google came to Chicago 22 years ago and opened a small Midwest sales office with two employees. Now the company has close to 2,000 Chicago workers, and it hired hundreds last year.

Google added 500 Chicago employees in 2021, the company said in a blog post this week. It now employs more than 1,800 across its two buildings in Fulton Market.




In addition to its sales teams, Google employs people across its engineering, search, ads, finance and Cloud projects.

...

Google is also reportedly eyeing additional space in the West Loop neighborhood, as its in talks to lease 200,000 square feet at 400 N. Aberdeen St., according to reports.

Last year Google announced plans to invest $25 million in the state of Illinois, including improvements to its two Chicago offices.

...

Google's Chicago growth comes as fellow Silicon Valley tech giant Facebook celebrates its 15-year Chicago anniversary this month. It has 500 local employees at its new Loop office, which officially opened last August. Like Google, Facebook's first Chicago office was a small sales outpost with fewer than 10 employees

Google is currently hiring for more than 500 jobs in Chicago, according to its career page.

[VKChaz]

Google is still pretty small in terms of total employment. Will be interesting to see how the growth compares between some of the locations it plans to hire - NYC, Atlanta, DC

Am curious about that 2 story warehouse. Especially in a world where everything is automated, maybe vertical industrial buildings make a comeback.

[jpIllInoIs]

I don't recall this posted:

Amsterdam 2022

Adyen announces new tech hubs in Chicago and Madrid

Adyen (AMS:ADYEN), the global payments platform of choice for many of the world’s leading companies, today announced that they will open new technology hubs in Chicago and Madrid. This move is a signal of the company's long-term investment in its technology teams to continue building a global platform that meets the needs of its customers.

“We are thrilled to be expanding our tech presence to these cities,” said Alexander Matthey, CTO at Adyen. “We are committed to continuing our investments in Adyen’s growth ambitions, and this move is an important step into this direction. We have big plans to continue to build the world's most customer-centric payments platform, and our technical teams are at the heart of it.”

Chicago and Madrid were strategic choices for the company, adding two new tech hubs to its list of 25+ global offices. This extension will enable Adyen to grow its technology organizations’ global footprint, bringing technical resources even closer to its merchants and will enable Adyen to tap into diverse talent pools that will offer new sources of innovation. The focus will be on hiring back-end software engineers, front-end software engineers, data scientists, infrastructure engineers, as well as other engineering and operational roles for the two hubs.

“We’re looking forward to hiring in these two cities as we scale the team around the world,” said Brooke Nayden, Global Head of HR at Adyen. “Chicago and Madrid are attractive cities to expand into given both the growing tech scenes as well as the talent pool from technical universities. We strive to have a diverse workforce, and adding people and perspectives from these two cities helps us achieve that aim.”



Adyen Chicago | Tuesday, May 24, 5:30-8:30PM CT

Open House & Happy Hour

Adyen is opening its doors in Chicago! Join us to celebrate the launch of our North America tech hub. We’re excited to share who we are and what we do, and get to know the Chicago community. We’ll have beverages and light bites, along with some giveaways!

Follow the link to register!