Quote:
Originally Posted by spyguy
http://www.chicagobusiness.com/artic...in-post-office
Walgreen looks to move HQ to Old Main Post Office
By Thomas A. Corfman and Greg Hinz May 08, 2014
Walgreen Co. is taking steps to move its headquarters downtown — the old Main Post Office.
Under pressure by some shareholders to move its Deerfield headquarters to Europe, the drug store giant has for months been scouting locations in the Loop, where it would potentially move thousands of jobs.
The company is the largest employer in Deerfield, with 3,500 workers, according to a filing by the northern suburb to bond holders in December 2012. Exactly how many employees would come downtown could not be determined.
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All I can say is: LOL.
This is a Holy Shit moment if this actually happens. They would unquestionably go Motorola style and take several of the massive floorplates of the post office to create hyper efficient space like in Merch Mart. These massive old buildings (Montgomery Ward, Merch Mart, Fulton Cold Storage, and now the Post Office) are turning out to be extremely efficient for the modern reality of open plan offices. Because the plates are so big and there are very few interior walls, the loss factors in these buildings are rock bottom which means the tenant gets several percent more usable square feet per rentable square foot.
In addition to the USF bump, they also can cram massive numbers of desks into a wide open floorplate like this. That means higher density plans and lower costs per employee. They also typically go with a low cost loft style buildout which simply involves cleaning and painting the structural elements and then installing new mechanicals which sheds huge amounts of buildout costs, again reducing the cost of moving downtown. All in all it might even be the case that most of the 1.7 million SF in Deerfield is turning into 1 million SF downtown because they are seeing massive efficiency increases. I am sure that the expansion possibilities in the Post Office are also very attractive to them. No major corporations like to be hemmed in which is a major reason why they moved to suburban corporate campuses in the first place. They can go up and out at a site like the Post Office.
This means, for massive companies like Moto or Walgreen, that take multiple full floors, downtown office space in a massive old building like this can actually be as cheap as or cheaper than suburban space. I'm starting to foresee a day where Chicago rue's the loss of the other previously obsolete downtown behemoth buildings because they seem to have become an incredible tool for attracting massive businesses to downtown. There could actually be a day where Merch Mart, Montgomery Ward, and Post Office are all 100% leased. What happens then? Are there other targets out there I am forgetting about?
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