Time and time again I see this. Getting corporations to relocate from the suburbs is like robbing Peter to pay Paul. Chicago and Illinois should be focusing on acquiring new corporate HQ's from overseas, or at the very least, out of state. Hollowed out suburbs will just spell trouble for the city, time to start thinking a little differently about city/suburb dynamics, I don't see the two being mutually exclusive.

A suburb relocation is just a more realistic scenario. A large company relocating from far away would risk losing tons of employees in the process. And while the state may not gain directly from these relocations, the city and County could. You could even count less traffic and less pollution as a benefit.

Also a bunch of new housing going up very close by. Assuming there will be an entrance on the Harrison side this is literally a 5 minute walk from RiverLine.

Yes, I also expect the Post Office and Riverline should jumpstart the relatively barren area between Harrison and Roosevelt from the river to west to I-90.

If I'm not mistaken that area might be under a PMD, which seems a good candidate for rezoning at this point?

Firms are more productive in cities, so unless they're moving just for tax incentives the overall benefits almost certainly exceed the loss to the burbs. (The fact that many firms were originally lured or kept in the burbs by tax incentives only strengthens this point)

And there are already many mechanisms at the federal, state and county level that re-distribute the pie so that everyone can be better off after corporate relocations. To the extent that these are inadequate, we can come up with more revenue sharing arrangements.

I never said anything about how realistic it is. An international HQ would probably hire mostly local/regional staff anyway. That's the thing, NEW headquarters from international companies usually create jobs, not merely shift them from one place at the expense of another. For instance (while not a corporate headquarters) The Foxxcon plant in (potentially) Wisconsin, they are not laying off X amount of employees in China, they are going to hire Wisconsinites, Illinoisans, etc. NEW JOBS, not shifted jobs. My point was stripping the suburbs is an extremely short sighted strategy. Also to have any meaningful impact on traffic and pollution would take like 20 post offices full of relocations.

These may be refurbishments rather than totally new windows.

http://re-view.biz/steel-windows.php

Industrial sash windows are terrible from a thermal standpoint - and guaranteed to fail Chicago Energy Code, which is why loft conversions rarely keep them. However, the single glass panes can be replaced with small double-pane IGUs. The frames can be sandblasted and repainted with an epoxy or other product.

If Post Office team was going with a replacement plan instead of refurbishment, I doubt you'd see those thicker mullions around the operable ventilators, or operable ventilators at all... it would just be three big fixed windows mulled together, with simulated divided lite. This would give you 95% of the historic appearance, for 50% of the cost of a true steel replacement.

It's "robbing Peter to pay Paul" if you think about Peter and Paul as basically the same. If I like Paul way better and don't care much for Peter, and say, for example, he stole money from Paul in the past, I'm happier with Paul having the money.

I care a lot about the health of the metro region. I'm excited when a large HQ moves to or expands in the suburbs, like Caterpillar, Takeda or Zurich. I'm more excited when a large operation moves downtown from anywhere. That's where most businesses belong and it was temporary market distortions and externalities that led them to decamp to highway-served greenfields in the first place.

Chicago's metro is better served if infrastructure and services can be concentrated in a hub. It's easier to get employees to one central place than it is to get them to numerous sprawling sites. Having a concentration of business downtown allows us to leverage our existing assets without having to dilute or reproduce them multiple times. I prefer dense, walkable, transit oriented environments and having a tax base and employment downtown makes it easier to serve that and build more of it. For all those reasons, I'd be super jazzed if Walgreens or someone like that left a highway-offramp campus behind to rot and moved to the city, despite not being especially interested in seeing rot develop anywhere.

I'm even more thrilled at the possibility that they're the original windows, refurbished, and beautifully from the pics. I did observe some early investigation into the metal work on the South facade, so this may indeed be the case.

anyone know if they plan on making a connection to the Clinton blue line stop?

That would be a brilliant move if they did. Works for the Merchandise Mart.

In the PD document there's a mention that part of the connection would be built, but the CTA would be responsible for actually connecting it to the existing station. Who knows why they didn't get them to pledge to build the whole thing.

I have actually seen aluminum replacement windows replicate the thicker muntins for the operable sashes before, so it is possible. From this far away it's hard to tell exactly what they did. With the protective covenants placed on the building they were probably held to maintaining the historic window appearance whether they were replaced or restored.

The developers of this bad boy must be going mad aggressive in their marketing efforts, because this is a lot of space. My guess is that they will get another suburban HQ in here.

But I would love if they got a company to move here from outside of Chicagoland

Or even better, for a young, local company to "graduate" into this space. The overwhelming majority of new hires in this economy are from local companies. The site selection enterprise gets a lot of press relative to their contribution to the local economy. For every McDonald's relocation, there's far more Groupons and Coyote Logistics that don't get nearly the attention they deserve. I think another business incubator, perhaps focused on transportation or construction would be a great addition to the space to help supply a steady stream of potential new office occupants in the Post Office.

Saw that another renovation permit was recently issued. This time for the outlying "compressor building." So is that the old building that powered the compressed air mail tubes?

^THIS! All of the suburbs vs city argument is a waste of energy. The real companies we should be focused on are Outcome Health, Uptake, SpotHero, GrubHub, SMS Assist, and their ilk. These companies represents employment that adds to the metro instead of just shuffling from suburbs to city. That being said, I think you are likely to get more startup activity in the city compared to the suburbs.

Guys this is not a zero sum game. 1 job in the suburbs does not have the same value to metro Chicago as 1 job in the city. Period.

This is not how cities work, cities exist because they become more and more efficient the more dense they become. That is because you have more users sharing the costs of infrastructure and creating unique opportunities for exchange. You will not have the same growth as a company if you wallow out in the suburbs where your employees will likely never interact on any given day with someone from outside of the company. That is bad for the company. Interactions with many different people with different ideas, ways of doing things, opinions, etc is what drives innovation and creativity. It's why the first trading posts sprung up and then grew into Hamlet's, then towns then cities. It's literally the story of civilization and suburbanization runs totally contrary to it.


Additionally these employees, by cloistering inside of a corporate campus, never interact with other businesses and do not provide the economic multiplier effect that brings. So not only do corporations not benefit from being in the burbs, but the businesses around them do not benefit as much because the great distances do not lend themselves to trade. That's why suburbs have malls and cities have a fabric of retail streets.

Finally the employees themselves do not benefit. Think of the great variety of options living in a city brings. Literally anything you want is at your fingertips. Want a gastro pub boom, it's there, want a brewery boom it's there, have an extremely obscure hobby, boom there's a Warhammer 3000 shop just for you. The most interesting thing about this is that it all starts the cycle anew. The great variety of options available to urban consumers makes them more creative, it let's them pursue anything they want and to drill down to the deepest level of their interests. This further Stokes their creativity and that feeds right back into their work life further benefiting their employers who in turn grow and attract yet more residents. Before you know it you have great business districts like the Chicago Loop.

And guess what? All suburbs are an unnatural outgrowth of that business district that feed off the dynanism of that agglomeration. Reconsolidating these employers and employees is reinvigorating our economy and is a self perpetuating process that cannot be stopped at this point. These are not 1 for 1 gains for the city and losses for the suburbs. Every job that comes downtown makes Chicago metro healthier and has a multiplier effect on literally every aspect of our economy that simply does not occur in the burbs. Economists have studied this. Take a course in urban economics. This is not some rant or bizzare theory I made up. It is accepted, tested, fact.

I don't see corporations clammoring to give 50% raises to their employees so that they can relocate. I have a family and I can't afford to move into the city. And I'm not squishing into a two bedroom.

I'll take the train first. Bedroom suburbs around the Metra stations aren't going away.

Only the most googly googly idealists among us (hanging out with other singles drinking fancy cocktails and pretending the world outside of the city doesn't exist--a fun world but not real) actually think bedroom suburbs will go away for good.

But a HQ relocation to the city makes sense for many corporations. Metra and the highways ensure that suburbanites will still get to a downtown job.

08/02/17

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^Hooooly shit. That's gorgeous. Definitely did not expect them to be at this stage in the lobby so quickly.

IIRC, the lobby was always toward the initial end of renovations for what I assume to market the project to prospective tenants

whoa

reminiscent of the merchandise mart lobby. A+. still hard to believe its happening but its becoming harder to doubt!

This is a huge building, 2.5 million square feet. What are they hoping will occupy all this?

I knew the potential was there. So wonderful to see a developer who did the right thing. :cheers:

Who knows - I'm guessing any type of business. That is a lot of space. My office is something like 125,000 sq ft and we have over 500 people working in that. Just imagine 2.25 million sq ft was similar to that - you'd have close to 10,000 people working there.


I think that if they can develop this thing the right way for the types of spaces business can use or at least renovate to (and not merely just "it looks great") then I think it would lure some companies either away from the suburbs or companies looking to move to a new city. It's right near the Clinton Blue Line stop and Union Station, not far of a walk from the LaSalle Street Metra stop, right near 2 major expressways, and the walk is doable from one of the Pink/Purple/Brown line stops. It's also walkable from parts of South Loop and Riverline development is going to be right there.

The transit coverage in that area is excellent. If they can do the marketing and get companies there, I don't think they'll have a problem filling it up within a handful of years.

Remember the opening scene of Dark Knight? The lobby was already in good shape. Looks like they just cleaned the stone and gave it a fresh coat of paint. Also new lighting fixtures. Probably a smart move to get this space done so that prospective tenants actually have something to go see.

They started painting the window frames on the 1st floor with silver paint, which really show the detailed structures in the frames. I can already imagine this building being in the CAF Open House a few years from now

Starting to remind me of the J.W. marriot renovation.

They are already starting a big marketing push, the fences on van buren have promotional material attached, I'll see if I can get a picture of it when I'm in the area.

They are talking to prospective tenants already and most of the available space is a blank slate that can be built out to suit the tenant's needs. From what I've heard through the grapevine, they are talking to some big name tenants. I'm excited to see what it develops into.

Welcome to the forum! (great name btw) That is indeed exciting to hear the city trying to convince big name tenants to relocate to the Post Office. Having a HQ or two relocate to the building as soon as it's open will truly be a boon to the Southwest Loop. There's so much potential to this section of downtown.

I would better hope they would start doing their marketing push now. Can you share with us whether these are HQ type of tenants or are they big office types of tenants? Stuff from out of the area or just relocating from the area? You don't have to name names of course - welcome to the forum!

They are pursuing anyone who can take an entire floor. They had a huge push to get Northern Trust but obviously they lost out to the CNA building. I've heard some other interesting names but none outside of the CBD or the burbs.

I heard from a friend in commercial RE that they are actively pushing full floor plates.
Exactly.

Who in the burbs? I work for a large company HQ'ed in the burbs. The offices are overcrowded and we're growing. Would love to move here.

$12.8 million renovation permit issued for the replacement of the building's 2,404 windows.

Amazon?

https://www.amazon.com/amazonhq2

:cheers:

This would be the perfect space for them. In the RFP they mention that they are willing to use a mixture of new construction and existing buildings. The Post Office gives them millions of square feet plus there are many empty lots and underutilized buildings not far from there. There is quick access to all Metra lines (except maybe the electric) and most L trains, too.

The Post Office would be an iconic building with tons of amenities, newly refurbished, and right on the river. Amazon would be getting a "look at me" type building. And, they can build all around it. This is such a perfect location based on the RFP.

Sorry if poorly written, I'm multitasking

You can't get much more visible than a HQ in a building with a highway literally going through it. Can you imagine a big Amazon logo at the top right over the freeway?

I agree - it's just a block from the Blue Line, for a single-seat ride to O'Hare in ~50 minutes, and less than a ten minute walk from two Loop stations serving Orange, Brown, Pink and Purple lines. Red Line is a bit far, but people could transfer at the Library stop. Ogilvey is about a 10 minute walk. I could see them running a shuttle on VanBuren and Harrison to serve the Lasalle and Metra Electric stations if it was really necessary, such a shuttle could also pick up Red Line and Green Line riders who didn't want to transfer.

id rather not

Lot to like about the city too. Strong and growing tech sector means they have a ready talent pool. Nearby access to large universities with strong engineering programs. O'Hare has a long list of destinations, domestic and international, served via direct flights. Not mentioned by others but very important to Amazon would be the ready access to high speed data due to the confluence of fiber optic networks in Chicago and the large number of high capacity data centers.

The post office though might be too small for their purpose particularly if they're looking to put everyone under a single roof.

From the Tribune:

Chicago will bid for Amazon's second headquarters — and its 50,000 jobs

Also, Amazon spans approximately 30 buildings in Seattle, so I'm sure wherever HQ2 is located they'll likely occupy numerous buildings. It sounds like they're looking to create an urban campus.

They're definitely going to require a good number of buildings (8 million sq. ft.!!!).

This may be wishful thinking, but I'm wondering whether they've already been considering this site and in discussion with relevant parties. Many of their criteria are almost uncannily fitting for this location (~45 min to airport, near major highway, transit options, nearby housing opportunities and greenfields (Related site??)). If the Post Office has 2.6m sq ft and the size is zoned for an additional 5 million, the total 7.6m puts it almost right at the potential goal.

The only problem is they initially want only 500k-1m. Would amazon want to be in a building with other tenants, especially if that building will eventually be one of many in a large campus?

God damn that would be huge. Makes the original 'pipe dream' for this site seem no so far fetched

The original pipe dream would have to happen to accommodate it. How sweet would a 2000' Amazon tower here be? Would be a fitting sister to the Sears named after the last retail innovator of this magnitude...

A megatall Amazon tower in Chicago just seems right to me...