CHICAGO | Economic & Business Development

[jpIllInoIs]

Rahm Emanuel crafts $150 million quantum computing research deal with U. of Chicago, U. of Tokyo
U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel said the deal between the universities in Chicago and Tokyo with Google and IBM “puts Chicago in the lead in the field of quantum.”
By Lynn Sweet May 18, 2023, 7:00pm CDT

"What this means for the city of Chicago is this, Emanuel said: “This puts Chicago in the lead in the field of quantum. The University of Chicago is now one of the premier schools worldwide in quantum research, which will pay dividends for generations economically.”

The emerging field of quantum computing, according to the Department of Energy, “may revolutionize our ability to solve problems that are hard to address with even the largest supercomputers.”

Emanuel was aware from his time as mayor that the U. of C. was already a leader in the area of quantum information and technology, so he asked the Tokyo school president, “What do you think about a partnership?”

After that, Emanuel said he reached out to Tom Pritzker, whose family charities have heavily supported research at the U. of C. — in 2019 the Pritzker Foundation pledged $100 million for the new Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, which has made quantum technology a focus.

To get to the bottom line, Emanuel said he promised to find “new funding” — that turned out to be IBM and Google — to make the quantum computing collaboration a reality.

IBM is giving, over 10 years, $100 million to develop — according to the U. of C. — “the world’s first quantum-centric supercomputer.” Google is putting up $50 million to, again according to the U. of C., “support quantum computing research and to help train the quantum workforce of the future.”

“In our faith, we would call it matchmaking,” Emanuel told me about his role in taking this project from a concept to raising the $100 million and $50 million to make it happen.

[chiphile]

Originally Posted by tjp

How do we always top this list but still consistently have one of the slowest growing MSA economies?

Because the site selection list is by number of projects, not total investment amounts, which is what really matters and what growing cities are actually interested in. Thus, 400 "projects" each involving 5 employees and a painter fixing up a warehouse are cause for celebration in Chicago, while actual people and their wallets are leaving Chicago for the metros getting multi-billion dollar microchip plants or EV battery plants, each of which would count as just ONE project under Site Selection but would create more jobs than all of the Chicago projects combined.

[ChiMIchael]

Originally Posted by chiphile

Because the site selection list is by number of projects, not total investment amounts, which is what really matters and what growing cities are actually interested in. Thus, 400 "projects" each involving 5 employees and a painter fixing up a warehouse are cause for celebration in Chicago, while actual people and their wallets are leaving Chicago for the metros getting multi-billion dollar microchip plants or EV battery plants, each of which would count as just ONE project under Site Selection but would create more jobs than all of the Chicago projects combined.

I wonder when was the last time the metro achieved a significant investment? It gets breadcrumbed regional offices, but nothing that really makes significant impact.

At the least, the stats proves the metro's efforts to mobilizes its economy. It's not giving up on itself.

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by ChiMIchael

I wonder when was the last time the metro achieved a significant investment. It hits breadcrumbed regional offices, but nothing that really makes significant impact.

At the least, the stats proves the metro's efforts to mobilizes its economy. It's not giving up on itself.

This is not really 100% true. It has both small and large investments all the time. The important thing here is that Chicago might kill a place like Austin in number of projects, but Austin has maybe a bigger number of the major new hire projects than Chicago. The issue also is that some of the investments aren't even in the media. There are many companies who just don't care to tell everyone about it. My company has hired well over 1000 in the city, mostly 6 figure jobs, in the last few years and it's not anywhere in the news. We're still hiring too and I've relocated people (again 6 figure earners) from the coasts to Chicago for this. I doubt that we would be counted in the SiteSelection criteria as a corporate expansion though, but we've still hired a bunch.

There's other large investments such as the Chan Zuckerberg Biotech hub which will be at least $250M right now:
https://www.fiercebiotech.com/medtec...ohub-expansion

This was back in 2019 but Uber moved its Freight division HQ to Chicago with plans to hire 2000. It's hired a bunch in Chicago actually:
https://www.chicagotribune.com/busin...bxq-story.html

Google also hired I think around 1000 in Chicago in the last couple of years. If their plans for Thompson Center holds they might be adding another 5000. We'll see though given everything happening. In terms of investment though Chicago fares pretty well and it's not like all these projects are 5 people. There's still a number of them that are quite a number of people. But also realize that you know, basic math. It takes a lot more to get a higher percent change for something much bigger. It is easier for a metro like Austin to get higher percentages in things than Chicago, NYC, or LA.

[Chi-Sky21]

Originally Posted by chiphile

Because the site selection list is by number of projects, not total investment amounts, which is what really matters and what growing cities are actually interested in. Thus, 400 "projects" each involving 5 employees and a painter fixing up a warehouse are cause for celebration in Chicago, while actual people and their wallets are leaving Chicago for the metros getting multi-billion dollar microchip plants or EV battery plants, each of which would count as just ONE project under Site Selection but would create more jobs than all of the Chicago projects combined.

Really multi-billion dollar microchip ? Those are not really in major cities, outskirts of phoenix but thats about it. And as for batteries we do get some of those. I think in Bolingbrook is a new one.

[twister244]

Originally Posted by jpIllInoIs

Rahm Emanuel crafts $150 million quantum computing research deal with U. of Chicago, U. of Tokyo
U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel said the deal between the universities in Chicago and Tokyo with Google and IBM “puts Chicago in the lead in the field of quantum.”
By Lynn Sweet May 18, 2023, 7:00pm CDT

"What this means for the city of Chicago is this, Emanuel said: “This puts Chicago in the lead in the field of quantum. The University of Chicago is now one of the premier schools worldwide in quantum research, which will pay dividends for generations economically.”

The emerging field of quantum computing, according to the Department of Energy, “may revolutionize our ability to solve problems that are hard to address with even the largest supercomputers.”

Emanuel was aware from his time as mayor that the U. of C. was already a leader in the area of quantum information and technology, so he asked the Tokyo school president, “What do you think about a partnership?”

After that, Emanuel said he reached out to Tom Pritzker, whose family charities have heavily supported research at the U. of C. — in 2019 the Pritzker Foundation pledged $100 million for the new Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, which has made quantum technology a focus.

To get to the bottom line, Emanuel said he promised to find “new funding” — that turned out to be IBM and Google — to make the quantum computing collaboration a reality.

IBM is giving, over 10 years, $100 million to develop — according to the U. of C. — “the world’s first quantum-centric supercomputer.” Google is putting up $50 million to, again according to the U. of C., “support quantum computing research and to help train the quantum workforce of the future.”

“In our faith, we would call it matchmaking,” Emanuel told me about his role in taking this project from a concept to raising the $100 million and $50 million to make it happen.

This is great news.

I think Chicago should really try to leverage this research moving forward to create a startup ecosystem centered around Q-computing. One can hope.....

[glowrock]

Originally Posted by bnk

https://www.businesswire.com/news/ho...Fields-Studios

Chicago’s Entertainment Industry Gets a Major Boost with Construction of The First and Only Purpose-Built Film Studios in Illinois – The Fields Studios

May 22, 2023 01:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time
CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Knickpoint Ventures today welcomed civic, community and business leaders to the topping-off ceremony at The Fields Studios, Chicago’s first purpose-built film studio that is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2024. It boasts nine sound stages on two lots totaling 132,000 square feet of sound stages and over 350,000 square feet of creative and production offices, plus mill and support space. The Fields Studios offers the largest sound stage in Chicago and is the latest addition to the mixed-use redevelopment of the 20+acre, 1.5 million-square-foot former Marshall Fields warehouse property on Chicago’s Northwest Side.


Governor J.B. Pritzker announced the state’s commitment to the growth of the local film business by introducing a development subsidy to spur the growth of additional, critical sound stage infrastructure such as The Fields Studios. “The Fields Studios is an important driver of jobs and revenue for the city and the state, and further elevates Illinois’ position as a viable and desirable production option for the entertainment industry. We welcome Knickpoint Ventures’ innovative approach, industry expertise and commitment to Chicago and its meaningful addition to our film production capacity,” said Governor Pritzker.

...

As I sit in my store's breakroom finishing my lunch break literally across the street from there.

[marothisu]

Some interesting economic data for the region is that the Chicago-Naperville-Arlington Heights Metro Division, with over 3.8M residents in the labor force, has the highest number of employed people (in April 2023) of any month since at least January 1994. This is as far back as the data goes. The unemployment rate dropped nearly 1 percentage point from March to April. While there was a small decrease in labor force month-over-month, the number of employed people increased by 3X as much as that decrease. The rate is the lowest in the metro division of any April since at least 1994 - it's at 3.2% now. The city, larger metro numbers, etc come out next week. Will be interesting to see how the city is in all of this.

[marothisu]

The minimum investable balance to sign up is $10M (i.e. checking/savings and investment accounts). Having an expensive house doesn't count towards this.



Chicago wealth flight? One banking giant that ought to know says no.

https://www.chicagobusiness.com/fina...lthy-customers

If the wealthy are leaving Chicago, or even contemplating it, it’s news to the country’s largest bank.

Over the next five years, JPMorgan Chase is planning to triple the number of advisers in its Chicago private bank catering to wealthy families and individuals.

And that’s after a 25% increase in private bankers over the past two years. The JPMorgan private bank now has 100 advisers serving the market.

..

JPMorgan’s private bank in Chicago manages $120 billion in client assets, up nearly 40% since 2019.

..

“We don’t see anything to make us believe that trajectory is going to slow,” O’Brien said.

JPMorgan’s actions belie the narrative some are telling about the Chicago area — that people with money are leaving for lower-tax states or because of perceptions that crime is out of control.

..

Cooper and O’Brien don’t see much change from where they’re sitting.

“There’s business formation happening here,” Cooper said.

..

New York-based JPMorgan Chase also is Chicago's largest bank by deposits and has the leading market share in the area for middle-market business banking.

[sentinel]

Moderator Note: please stay on topic for CHICAGO Economic & Business Development.

[jboy560]

Thank you for your recent posts, marothisu. I’ve met a *lot* of people in the past year or so that moved from higher COL places (NYC, LA, SF, etc.) and I wonder if a lot of remote workers are moving here. They’d be employed, but not necessarily reflected in the nonfarm employer survey response-based figures. That would also fit with some of the other narratives, like the insane apartment market, the article you posted above, and possibly the huge number of out of state plates I’ve seen mentioned here and elsewhere over winter.

Can you post the city and metro information when it’s published? I’m not sure how to access it, but would be interested in hearing your thoughts on the data once it’s publicly available.

[galleyfox]

Originally Posted by jboy560

Thank you for your recent posts, marothisu. I’ve met a *lot* of people in the past year or so that moved from higher COL places (NYC, LA, SF, etc.) and I wonder if a lot of remote workers are moving here. They’d be employed, but not necessarily reflected in the nonfarm employer survey response-based figures. That would also fit with some of the other narratives, like the insane apartment market, the article you posted above, and possibly the huge number of out of state plates I’ve seen mentioned here and elsewhere over winter.

Can you post the city and metro information when it’s published? I’m not sure how to access it, but would be interested in hearing your thoughts on the data once it’s publicly available.

https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LAUD...de_graphs=true

[galleyfox]

Chicago-Naperville-Arlington Heights

Cook


DuPage


Will


McHenry


Kendall


Grundy

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by jboy560

Thank you for your recent posts, marothisu. I’ve met a *lot* of people in the past year or so that moved from higher COL places (NYC, LA, SF, etc.) and I wonder if a lot of remote workers are moving here. They’d be employed, but not necessarily reflected in the nonfarm employer survey response-based figures. That would also fit with some of the other narratives, like the insane apartment market, the article you posted above, and possibly the huge number of out of state plates I’ve seen mentioned here and elsewhere over winter.

Can you post the city and metro information when it’s published? I’m not sure how to access it, but would be interested in hearing your thoughts on the data once it’s publicly available.

The data is about people who live in those places. It's not about where the job is. In other words, someone who lives in Naperville but works in downtown Chicago would be counted for Naperville. There is a period of time where people who move for jobs, especially if they're remote and don't even let their employer know that they may not be reflected in the stats right away. I see someone else did but I'm waiting til Wednesday to see the updated city/overall metro numbers. Since there was a pretty big drop in unemployment rate, I'm curious as to how it's reflected in the city.

There have definitely been a lot of people moving here from the coasts. Not sure how much more than usual but at least that's anecdotal. We live in a small condo building but every unit except 1 (counting us) moved in the last small handful of years from the coast. 1 unit, the most expensive in the building, moved from Asia.

[marothisu]

The city level employment data for April came out. Unemployment rate for Chicago for April 2023 is 3.6% (not seasonally adjusted). This is tied with Oct 2019 for the 3rd lowest rate of any month since Jan 1990. Only Nov and Dec 2019 had a lower rate.

2nd highest number of employed residents. Only June 2000 had more by only 1798. April 2023 had 15,309 more employed residents for Chicago than April 2019. From a city proper perspective, Chicago now has a lower unemployment rate than Los Angeles, NYC, Dallas, and Houston. It's less than a half percent above San Diego.

[jboy560]

That’s awesome news! To add to the great news, Chicago hit an all time record high for hotel occupancy (all time, including pre-pandemic!).

“An average of 44,383 hotel rooms were occupied each night on Friday and Saturday in the city, an all-time high, according to Choose Chicago, the city’s marketing organization. Occupancy rates hit 96.8% on average as fans flocked from other parts of the US to attend one of the singer’s three concerts in Chicago.”

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...cord#xj4y7vzkg

[lakeshoredrive]

Originally Posted by jboy560

That’s awesome news! To add to the great news, Chicago hit an all time record high for hotel occupancy (all time, including pre-pandemic!).

“An average of 44,383 hotel rooms were occupied each night on Friday and Saturday in the city, an all-time high, according to Choose Chicago, the city’s marketing organization. Occupancy rates hit 96.8% on average as fans flocked from other parts of the US to attend one of the singer’s three concerts in Chicago.”

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...cord#xj4y7vzkg

Hopefully this will give developers and hotels the confidence to go ahead with proposed developments that have hotel portions attached to them.

[ebitdadada]

Just chiming in. I think a few folks have mentioned in passing but... the residential rental market is nutty. I have less info on it but the purchase market also seems to be rather solid (meaning it doesn't seem to be a product of people renting not buying).
Anywho... this seems rather incongruent with the approved narrative of "Chicago is collapsing". If Chicago is emptying out it where are all these people applying for apartments coming from???

To expand a bit, I've had rental properties for about 8 years and have never seen anything like this. A few quotes from Realtors:

Agent 1: Asked how the rental market is
"Prices are up!"
a min later
"Wayyy up"

Agent 2: Also asked how the rental market is
"Oooh yes! Things are renting fast and are getting expensive."

Agent 3: Regarding a referral finding a place via not them (usually makes agents not happy)
"with how tough the market has been, as long as (renters) find something they're happy with then hooray!"

More data-driven, from what I've teased out of MLS data, rents are up over 10% year-over-year in all in all of the neighborhoods I've had to calc. Back to anecdotal, the few listings I've had have been snapped up incredibly quickly, with big price increases, and a torrent of interest. Also anecdotal, there seem to be more applicants from out of state than there had been pre-pandemic. General demo of those folks seems to be young and highly educated (again this is very anecdotal).

Anyway, seems more "on the ground" indicators like the rental market and return to office stats (Chicago is now closing in on Dallas for #3 for total week and is already #3 for peak occupancy day) seem to point to Chicago doing pretty well despite the media claiming catastrophe. If anything, I guess this seems normal. I've personally spent the last 8 years freaking out from time to time that Chicago was done for. All the while, residential towers kept going up and rents kept increasing.... Strange how that can work in a city people are "fleeing."

[Chisouthside]

anecdotal experience but it seems that people that leave are the loudest. know a couple of people that left for various reasons and while they claim theyre happy they never stfu about illinois and chicago. same thing ive noticed with some native californians i met when i lived there.

Originally Posted by ebitdadada

Just chiming in. I think a few folks have mentioned in passing but... the residential rental market is nutty. I have less info on it but the purchase market also seems to be rather solid (meaning it doesn't seem to be a product of people renting not buying).
Anywho... this seems rather incongruent with the approved narrative of "Chicago is collapsing". If Chicago is emptying out it where are all these people applying for apartments coming from???

To expand a bit, I've had rental properties for about 8 years and have never seen anything like this. A few quotes from Realtors:

Agent 1: Asked how the rental market is
"Prices are up!"
a min later
"Wayyy up"

Agent 2: Also asked how the rental market is
"Oooh yes! Things are renting fast and are getting expensive."

Agent 3: Regarding a referral finding a place via not them (usually makes agents not happy)
"with how tough the market has been, as long as (renters) find something they're happy with then hooray!"

More data-driven, from what I've teased out of MLS data, rents are up over 10% year-over-year in all in all of the neighborhoods I've had to calc. Back to anecdotal, the few listings I've had have been snapped up incredibly quickly, with big price increases, and a torrent of interest. Also anecdotal, there seem to be more applicants from out of state than there had been pre-pandemic. General demo of those folks seems to be young and highly educated (again this is very anecdotal).

Anyway, seems more "on the ground" indicators like the rental market and return to office stats (Chicago is now closing in on Dallas for #3 for total week and is already #3 for peak occupancy day) seem to point to Chicago doing pretty well despite the media claiming catastrophe. If anything, I guess this seems normal. I've personally spent the last 8 years freaking out from time to time that Chicago was done for. All the while, residential towers kept going up and rents kept increasing.... Strange how that can work in a city people are "fleeing."

[moorhosj1]

Originally Posted by ebitdadada

Just chiming in. I think a few folks have mentioned in passing but... the residential rental market is nutty. I have less info on it but the purchase market also seems to be rather solid (meaning it doesn't seem to be a product of people renting not buying).

Crain's has an article with data about home values in the city vs suburbs. Prices have been lower than 1-year-ago for the past six months. Of course, they waited until after hitting on crime and remote work to say this:

Chicago is not alone. In five big cities with distinct city-suburban markets and declining prices, city home values are down more than those in the metro area by at least 2 percentage points. That’s according to Crain’s examination of data for Boston, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, D.C., on Redfin, an online real estate marketplace.

Not great news, I wonder if people are actually switching to rentals because of high interest rates, makes sense when we have record low inventory for sale.

Of course, crime is not the only factor in Chicago's price drop. Population loss is another. According to the U.S. Census, Chicago lost over 81,000 people between April 2020 and July 2022. The drop means there were 2.1% fewer people living in the city in 2022 than in 2020. That’s lost demand for homes.

They really can't help themselves.