CHICAGO | Economic & Business Development

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by left of center

the river is running red with the blood of homicide victims and that the city's atmosphere is composed of 95% stray bullets.

^ This isn't anything new, we've know about this for decades:

"There's blood in the streets in the town of Chicago"
Peace Frog
The Doors
(1970)

[k1052]

Tribune says Google is going to lease 14,000 square feet at Peoria and Randolph for a retail store. Kind of a big deal I think since they don't have any permanent retail presence elsewhere AFAIK.

[SIGSEGV]

Originally Posted by k1052

Tribune says Google is going to lease 14,000 square feet at Peoria and Randolph for a retail store. Kind of a big deal I think since they don't have any permanent retail presence elsewhere AFAIK.

I was just going to post this, so I'll offer the link:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/busine...816-story.html

[marothisu]

Dais Technology gets $9M funding

https://www.builtinchicago.org/2018/...roundup-081618

Located near O'Hare, but within the city.

Dais Technology, a data-driven insurance platform, has raised $9 million in funding, according to a regulatory filing. The stealth-mode startup did not respond to requests for comment, and has not released any information regarding the raise.

[marothisu]

July Home Sales and Median Price in Metro Chicago Area Delivered Gains as Housing Market Found Firmer Footing, RE/MAX Reports

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-rele...300698402.html

The metropolitan Chicago housing market found firmer footing in July, posting modest gains in both sales activity and median sales price, RE/MAX reports. That followed two months of declining sales activity compared to the same months in 2017, even as the median sales price continued to rise.

Total July home sales in the seven-county region totaled 11,370 units, up +1.4% from July of last year. Sales had fallen -1.2% in May and -5.8% in June. The July median sales price gained +2% to $255,000, the highest median price for July since 2008.

One constant in the Chicago housing market for several years has been the trend toward lower average market times, which is the period between when a home is listed and when it goes under contract. The July average shrank to 61 days from 66 days a year earlier, continuing an unbroken string of year-over-year declines that began in January 2016. It is the lowest market time for any month since RE/MAX began tracking that data in 2005.

[marothisu]

^ The people who did this ranking don't know how to number for ties. Chicago is actually tied for 7th with Boston, Toronto, and Sydney, not 11th. Looked back in 2010 though - Chicago was 47th then - now tied for a spot in the top 10.

[the urban politician]

US Steel planning $750 million investment into its Gary plant:

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/manuf...ent-gary-plant

No mention of job changes, however

[rgolch]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

What really concerns me about Marothisu's Inc 5000 list is the almost complete lack of representation by other midwestern cities than Chicago. I mean, for MSA nothing cracks the top 10, and that's really concerning given that the metros of the midwest which largely abandoned their central cities at least had healthy and vibrant suburbs.

When you get to city propers, the first city to pop up is Minneapolis, which is way down the list.

Meanwhile, every other region (northeast, south, west coast) have multiple cities representing their regions. Chicago is really the huge outlier for the midwestern/Great Lakes region, and this is NOT a good thing...

I'm still not sure it's a bad thing. I think it's mixed.

On the one hand, being in a region which has lost its significance does on some level effect national perception of Chicago. On the other hand, the city really doesn't have any competition for high level college graduates who want to stay in the midwest.

Sure there are decent jobs in Minneapolis and St Louis. But those cities aren't even remotely close to the massive center of gravity of Chicago. And as time moves on, Chicago will continue to pull further ahead.

Contrast that with the west coast, where both SF and LA are juggernauts for wealth and success. And further north Seattle is also killing it.

[marothisu]

July labor force data is out for state. Although the amount of people in the labor force is lower than even a year ago, the amount of employed persons is the highest since July 2008. The unemployment rate is equal to that of February and January 2000. The number of employed persons is around the same as it was in June 2000, and higher than at any point from.1976 to 2000 (data only goes back to 1976).

[left of center]

Why Chicago is the best answer to Amazon's talent challenge

Step aside, Washington, Dallas and Denver. Based on the cost and size of its office-sector workforce, Chicago is the most viable option for HQ2.

Source: http://www.chicagobusiness.com/john-...lent-challenge

Amazon has a challenge that would stump Alexa: how to satisfy its voracious appetite for growth while keeping costs in check. Of the 17 U.S. metro areas the company is considering for a headquarters expansion outside Seattle, Chicago looks like the best answer.

At first glance, Chicago isn't close to the cheapest location. With an average annual wage last year of $54,160, it is eighth-most expensive among the 17 U.S. areas in the race. (The Washington, D.C., market has three finalist sites. Comparable data for Toronto, the lone non-U.S. contender, wasn't readily available.) Miami has the lowest average annual pay, at $46,860.

But when you drill into the job types Amazon would need for a headquarters that could employ up to 50,000 people within 15 years, Chicago is surprisingly affordable. Meanwhile, the cities traditionally thought of as sources of low-cost talent—Atlanta and Dallas, for instance—aren't all that cheap. And those that are the cheapest—Indianapolis, Nashville, Tenn., and Columbus, Ohio—are probably too small to accommodate an employer as fast-growing as Amazon.

Using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Crain's compared 16 job categories, from marketing and accounting to IT management and programming, across the 17 metro areas. Here's what we found:

Chicago is the second-cheapest area for market research analysts, with an average annual paycheck of $62,880.
Chicago is the third-cheapest for sales managers, marketing managers and transportation and storage managers—a better bargain than Columbus, Atlanta, Raleigh, N.C., and Dallas.
Chicago is the fourth-cheapest for human resources managers, less expensive than Pittsburgh, Denver and Philadelphia.
Chicago is the fifth-cheapest for computer and information systems managers and in the middle of the pack for most front-line tech jobs.

"There are only seven cities outside Seattle that have an equivalent or greater population base of advanced industry service workers," says Chris Fair, president of consulting firm Resonance in Vancouver, British Columbia. Chicago is one of them. In fact, Resonance ranked Chicago as the most realistic choice for Amazon, the only study to do so.

Cities such as Raleigh, Nashville, Columbus, Indianapolis, Pittsburgh or Austin, Texas, Fair says, "are not serious contenders based on the number of people Amazon is looking to hire. That is the one factor that people are overlooking. You're not going to find 50,000 workers in a place with a pool of 100,000 advanced workers."

Chicago is the nation's third-largest city, with a workforce of 4.6 million. Only nine of the 20 semifinalists are as large as Seattle, where Amazon already is finding itself hard-pressed to find enough talent at prices that don't send its budget skyrocketing.

Still, Chicago largely has been overlooked in the Amazon derby handicapping. Even in the case of Resonance's research, it won by default. New York topped the list as most qualified but was deemed too expensive; Toronto was runner-up but disqualified because Canadian cities don't offer tax incentives.

...

But talent is the key ingredient to the sprawling company's constantly evolving business that seems poised to upset more and more of the U.S. economy. That requires unusual breadth and scale. In the past year alone, Amazon has ballooned to more than 575,000 employees from 382,400 as it pushed deeper into groceries, brick-and-mortar retail, logistics and web services. Much of the recent employment spike can be attributed to last year's $13.7 billion purchase of Whole Foods Market and its 89,000 employees. But even before that, Amazon's headcount more than doubled in two years to nearly 350,000.

If Amazon hopes to maintain that kind of growth, Chicago doesn't look like flyover country.

[marothisu]

I've said some of these same things on here. People who think you only need tech workers are missing the point. You need way more people. And hiring for 50,000 workers is crazy. I have a hard enough time hiring 10 people I think are good..and this is in NYC. I can't imagine doing this for even 300 people in just 1 year. Truly and absolutely daunting.

Guaranteed it'll come down to the metros with good transit, walkability, and a large existing labor force. That is essentially Chicago, NYC, DC, Philadelphia, Boston, and Toronto (if they are ok with Canada). Outside shot to LA, Atlanta, and Dallas...and Miami

[left of center]

Yeah, my thoughts exactly. They need a metro area that can not only supply all those workers, but also absorb the huge demand hit to the local housing market. They aren't looking to replicate the same situation as Seattle, where they are now enacting punitive head taxes on companies like Amazon to help ease the housing crisis there. Chicago literally have miles and miles of inexpensive housing. We can take in 50k over a decade without wreaking total havoc to the housing market. Few cities in the US are large enough and with housing values moderate enough to be able to do that.

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by left of center

Yeah, my thoughts exactly. They need a metro area that can not only supply all those workers, but also absorb the huge demand hit to the local housing market. They aren't looking to replicate the same situation as Seattle, where they are now enacting punitive head taxes on companies like Amazon to help ease the housing crisis there. Chicago literally have miles and miles of inexpensive housing. We can take in 50k over a decade without wreaking total havoc to the housing market. Few cities in the US are large enough and with housing values moderate enough to be able to do that.

One of the reasons Amazon put the 1 million person minimum constraint on things is for reasons like this. Based on their actual experiences, they know what can happen. Back in 2000, the Seattle MSA was over 3 million people (today it's nearing in on 4 million) and that's not to mention that they already had in the area the HQ of Microsoft (since 1986) and Nintendo (since 1982) both in Redmond. The actual city of Seattle has gone from 560K people to 725K people in that same time period, so a little different, but the city was still not in bad economic conditions at all. The median household income of Seattle in 2000 was higher than NYC by 20%. Their educational attainment was still high back then at 47% college educated - NYC was at 27% by contrast. The city was already doing well economically when Amazon started to take off and still look what at what has happened.

It's nice that Amazon listed Indianapolis, Nashville, Columbus, etc in there but purely based on what would happen if Amazon moved in to all of these places, I doubt they're going to make the cut ,not to mention what was already talked about with how to even get 50,000 people. It is honestly going to come down to the most populous MSAs that also offer at a minimum decent public transportation.

I think Chicago has a more decent shot than people realize. Maybe it won't win, but people rank it way too low in their analysis because they don't take into consideration the pure numbers game of this thing. I have to wonder if most of the analysts for organizations like CNBC have any actual experience in hiring many real people for stuff like this and building out real teams of people who will be building stuff (like software). The pure numbers aspect of what they want to do should be enough to basically omit a large handful of names from the top 20. I would be shocked based on that alone if somewhere like Indianapolis, Nashville, Columbus, etc would win - no offense to any of them. Just purely by the daunting task of hiring 50,000 people within a few years. It's insane.

[Randomguy34]

^ Agreed, I'm all for new jobs but tech companies shouldn't expect to get all the concessions they want

In other tech news, Solstice is expanding its office in the Gogo building along with plans to recruit 150 new employees

Surpassing 150 hires this year, Solstice is expanding its Chicago office
https://www.builtinchicago.org/2018/...d-hiring-round

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by Randomguy34

^ Agreed, I'm all for new jobs but tech companies shouldn't expect to get all the concessions they want

You mean any companies? It's not just tech companies that do this. Anyway, I think their use of land that's meant for the public on certain occasions is messed up. However, I think $10M is low enough where the city/state still wins if 5000 people are hired. These on average aren't really low paying and will come back to the city and state in other ways pretty quickly.

In other tech news, Solstice is expanding its office in the Gogo building along with plans to recruit 150 new employees

Surpassing 150 hires this year, Solstice is expanding its Chicago office
https://www.builtinchicago.org/2018/...d-hiring-round

That is great news.

Also this:

Senseair Opens North America Headquarters Near Chicago

Today, Senseair, a worldwide leading provider of air and gas sensing technology, opened the doors of their new North America headquarters in St. Charles, Ill., just outside of Chicago.

Senseair offers innovative technology for high precision, small, wireless and low power air sensing products. The company is best known for Sensor-Core modules for integration, Sensor-on-Board with application features for final assembly, as well as fully designed white-label Sensor-in-Case solutions.

The new headquarters will provide sales, marketing, technical support, order fulfillment and customer service for clients throughout North America.

They are HQ in Sweden, about 200 miles north of Stockholm. Asahi Kasei Group of Tokyo acquired them earlier this year. Probably not the most glamorous jobs - decent paying but probably not super high, but again still more positive news of companies choosing to locate in the Chicago area, especially when talking about any sort of HQ (whether global or continental).

[the urban politician]

We seem to be having the Salesforce discussion in 2 places. Perhaps we should just discuss it at the Wolf Point thread and leave this thread just for major updates?

[Steely Dan]

^ i moved all of the salesforce/wolf point discussion to the wolf point south thread:

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=217949

[marothisu]

Lynch, Ulliott raise $10 million for Codeverse expansion

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/john-...erse-expansion

Katy Lynch and Craig Ulliott’s tech-ed experiment seems to be working out quite well.

Codeverse, their effort to teach kids to code with both software and bricks and mortar, has raised $10 million from Jeff Cantalupo's Listen Ventures and other investors. The company will add locations in Naperville and Wilmette later this year, says Lynch, co-founder and chief marketing officer.

Codeverse was launched two years ago by Lynch and Ulliott, a husband-and-wife team who have been involved in several startups. They opened their first school, or studio, in Lincoln Park last year.

Codeverse has 21 workers at its Lincoln Park facility and other 19 on its corporate staff. It expects to hire another 60 workers as it launches the new locations. Next up is scale: Lynch and Ulliott are looking at how to expand to other states. “I’m super-pumped about these next locations,” she says.

---
Follow up on some funding news from the last week or so I posted

Former Uptake CTO’s Stealthy Startup Dais Wants to Revolutionize Insurance

https://www.americaninno.com/chicago...ize-insurance/

A young Chicago startup that’s bringing tech to legacy insurance companies hasn’t had problems raising money on its quest to change the insurance game.

Dais, founded by Jason Kolb, the founding CTO of Chicago startup Uptake, has been quietly building a platform for insurance companies since the startup launched in late 2016. It quickly raised a $5 million seed round in 2016 and this month raised another $9 million of what will be a $17 million round, according to SEC filings. Dais’ backers include EMC Insurance and Jewelers Mutual.

Dais’ platform is helping insurance carriers and agencies with a range of workplace efficiencies, from workflow automation to billing to using data to quantify risk.

“Similar to what Salesforce is for sales, we’ve built this for insurance,” Kolb said.

Dais has a team of around 100 people, made up of both technology and insurance experts. Aaron Larson, the startup’s chief revenue officer, previously worked at EMC and knows firsthand how much is wasted in the insurance industry by not adopting new technologies.

Quietly built up a team of 100 - nice.

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Rippleshot raises $1.5 million

https://www.builtinchicago.org/2018/...roundup-082318

Rippleshot, a fraud detection service for merchants and card issuers that identifies illegitimate card activity, recently raised $1.5 million in funding. The company did not respond to requests for comment about the round. In February 2017, the company received $2.6 million in investments...

[marothisu]

Talman Consultants Moves to Landmark Chicago Board of Trade Building

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-rele...300700316.html

Talman Consultants, LLC (Talman), one of the fastest growing engineering design consulting firms in Chicago, announced today its expansion and move to the landmark Chicago Board of Trade Building at 141 W Jackson Boulevard. The firm will occupy 16,917 sq. ft. Bespoke Commercial Real Estate brokered the lease.

Led by managing partner Katherine Latham and partner James Norton, Talman experienced tremendous growth since its inception in 2016. The firm has tripled in size and partners with many of the industry's leading utility providers including Crown Castle, Verizon, Comcast and NPL Construction.

I don't think they're that big - maybe 30 or 40 people, but still good growth even if just percentage wise.

----

This one is not a Chicago company per se but they have an office in Chicago that is mentioned:

Upgrade, Inc. Closes $62 Million Series C Round

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-rele...300701348.html

"The new capital will enable continued investments in product, credit analytics, compliance, risk management and expansion of our San Francisco, Phoenix, Montreal and Chicago offices,"

Upgrade employs over 300 team members and is headquartered in San Francisco, California, with an operations center in Phoenix, Arizona and technology centers in Chicago, Illinois and Montreal, Canada.

[marothisu]

After Landing $50M, Workplace Benefit Startup PerkSpot Eyes Growth

https://www.americaninno.com/chicago...t-eyes-growth/

When Mouse first joined PerkSpot, it had about six employees and 120 clients. But he has since helped it grow to 40 employees with about 750 clients. And Mouse has no plans to slow down. He says he wants to triple PerkSpot’s staff in the next two years, filling roles in its product and marketing departments. To accommodate its growth, PerkSpot will be moving into a new office space by the end of the year in River North, just down the block from its current office.