CHICAGO | Economic & Business Development

[marothisu]

Amazon announced today that it's opening a 2000 employee office in Manhattan at Hudson Yards in a space that happens to be very close to my office. It will cost them $55M to build out two full floors - 360K square feet.

IMO this is kind of signaling that NYC will get a major office, but probably not the HQ2. The building already exists but they are merely doing a build out - $55M for 2,000 employees. Even if they spent half that much on HQ2 per employee in completely built buildings (100% unlikely on both counts), it would cost them nearly $700M in buildouts. If the average cost for every 2000 employees was $55M then they'd be shelling out nearly $1.4B to just do office build outs in already existing office space. Now just imagine how much it would cost them in NYC if they had to build their own buildings (100% likely). They would be shelling out billions of dollars - probably more than the entire net income for 2016 on this if they picked NYC for HQ2. This isn't even counting taxes and operating costs of 8-9 million square feet (millions upon millions of dollars per year extra).

I think they gave NYC a very good "consolation prize" of 2000 person office (still very, very major), but to me it signals that they won't be choosing NYC for HQ2.

[Randomguy34]

^ Even Related's Stephen Ross mentioned that he finds it unlikely for NYC to get HQ2: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...ed-s-ross-says

In non-Amazon news, Mars Food (a smaller unit of Mars Inc.) is moving from LA to Chicago. More proof that Chicago is becoming the major food hub of the country:

Mars Food moves North American HQ to Goose Island

By Greg Trotter
Mars Food is opening a new North American headquarters in Chicago’s Goose Island neighborhood, according to the company.

Mars Food, a business unit of Mars Inc., previously based its North American business in Los Angeles. The new 20,000-square-foot office, located on West Blackhawk Street, will house 75 employees, half of whom have been hired locally. It is scheduled to open early next month.

“Moving the Mars Food North America headquarters to Chicago enables our long-term growth ambitions by bringing us closer to our factories, our customers and other parts of our business,” said Caroline Sherman, vice president of corporate affairs for Mars Food North America, in an email.

Mars Food, a smaller segment of the Mars’ business relative to pet care products and chocolate, includes a $1 billion brand in Uncle Ben’s, and smaller brands such as Seeds of Change and Suzi Wan.

Mars is working on growing its food portfolio, even as it further invests in its chocolate and pet care business.

[LouisVanDerWright]

When it says half of those 75 people will be hired locally does that mean the other half are being relocated from LA?

[Vlajos]

Originally Posted by LouisVanDerWright

When it says half of those 75 people will be hired locally does that mean the other half are being relocated from LA?

I believe the other half are moving here from elsewhere. I met someone recently that moved here from NJ for one of these jobs.

[jboy560]

Here is a nice, interesting article by Bloomberg centered around Chicago's tourism boom.


Chicago Is More Popular With Tourists Than Ever
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...ists-than-ever

[left of center]

Originally Posted by Randomguy34

In non-Amazon news, Mars Food (a smaller unit of Mars Inc.) is moving from LA to Chicago. More proof that Chicago is becoming the major food hub of the country:

Chicago is becoming the food hub of the US, and Amazon is eyeing becoming the biggest grocer and food delivery company in the US.
Match made in heaven?

[the urban politician]

Chicago has almost as much tourism as New York City. Damn.

Where we continue to lag is in international tourism, but hell this is a HUGE leap forward regardless. Making the city more attractive, developing so many vacant lots, adding the hotels, improving infrastructure, upgrading and adding museums, and of course the food & theatre scene--we are really on a roll.

I was listening to Lee Bey on the radio today (new head of the Dusable Museum--he's a great choice, btw) and he's really gunning hard to get some of that tourism down to the south side. They have a new exhibit there about south side architecture. With that & Pullman plus the Obama Library, I do have hope that we will finally get some spillover to south side neighborhoods.

[ithakas]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

Chicago has almost as much tourism as New York City. Damn.

Where we continue to lag is in international tourism, but hell this is a HUGE leap forward regardless. Making the city more attractive, developing so many vacant lots, adding the hotels, improving infrastructure, upgrading and adding museums, and of course the food & theatre scene--we are really on a roll.

I was listening to Lee Bey on the radio today (new head of the Dusable Museum--he's a great choice, btw) and he's really gunning hard to get some of that tourism down to the south side. They have a new exhibit there about south side architecture. With that & Pullman plus the Obama Library, I do have hope that we will finally get some spillover to south side neighborhoods.

There's a ton of cool stuff happening on the South Side right now (particularly the type of thing that would appeal to international tourists) – beyond Lee Bey's photo exhibition of South Side architecture, there's the Palais de Tokyo, one of the biggest contemporary art institutions in all of France, curating an exhibition in a Daniel Burnham-designed horse stable next to DuSable. The Ren Society continually shows some of the most cutting edge contemporary art in the world, as does Neubauer Collegium and Logan Center. Four of the Architecture Biennial 'anchor sites' are on the South Side. The Hyde Park Jazz Festival is this weekend, which is a pretty huge event.

A lot of this is in or around Hyde Park, of course, which is why I think it's so important that Bronzeville become a bigger draw for tourism (connecting downtown and McCormick to the South Side and creating a continuous link to Hyde Park, particularly with the Obama Library coming). Bronzeville's got the built-in history, culture, and identity perfect to build on for tourism attractions.

If only there were some institution looking to form here that would speak to that neighborhood's history, and some transit-adjacent historic building with relevant history in that neighborhood sitting vacant ready for renovation...

On another note, I'm hopeful that the Related site in the South Loop helps create a more walkable path from downtown to some of the city's best neighborhoods on the near South Side (Chinatown, Pilsen, etc.) and pulls more people that way. Pullman's already incredible to visit, but with the national monument and renovations of its biggest historic buildings, I can't wait to see the next stage.

[marothisu]

As the 2016 ACS data is out, a lot of interesting stuff. One interesting tidbit is that Chicago now has a higher median household income for households with an Asian householder than both NYC and LA. Houston has slightly higher than Chicago. Chicago in 2015 had the lowest median income of households with an Asian householder of the top 5 most populous cities but it's surged ahead of LA and NYC and is now thousands of dollars above both. Chicago increased for this category by almost $8300 from 2015 to 2016 while LA and NYC barely increased.

I guess some slightly positive news too is that the same thing for Black/African American householder increased by over $1000 per year for Chicago from 2015 to 2016. It's just barely below what the 2007 and 2008 ACS had. Unfortunately still lowest of the top 5 cities but I guess at least it's some increase. Cities like NYC and Houston had big (bigger than Chicago) increases for this.


As far as educational attainment goes, by race, here are the percent increases by major racial group. When I say +2% for example, I mean it could have gone up from 19% to 21%.

* White, Not Hispanic/Latino | +1.97% | +11,533 people
* Black/African American: +2.17% | +9642 people
* Asian: +3.73% | +6336 people
* Other Race: +1.15% | +2774 people
* Hispanic/Latino Alone: -1.21% | -3748 people

[marothisu]

^ Interesting. Just ran the numbers on this for Black/African American educational attainment and Chicago added the most in this category with a Bachelor's degree or higher of any city in the top 10 most populous US cities. Houston wasn't far behind with Philadelphia and NYC about 1600 lower than that of Chicago in net change. It moved up a place from 8th in 2015 to 7th in 2016. Wasn't expecting such a big bump in the raw numbers but as you can see from above it wasn't actually that much lower of a bump than White, Non Hispanic/Latino.

Interestingly enough, the only cities that I've seen so far to lose Bachelor's and higher black/african american population were on the west coast. San Francisco lost nearly 2500 people while San Diego lost a little over 1000. Los Angeles lost about 450 people while Phoenix lost a little over 300. Very interesting, though not surprising about San Francisco city.

[marothisu]

Also turns out that Chicago has the 5th highest percentage for Asians with Bachelors degree or higher of any city with 500K+ population and also increased the most (raw number wise) of any city for Asians with Bachelor's degree or higher from 2015 to 2016. San Jose, Charlotte, Houston, and Seattle were all respectively next highest increases.

Also worth noting that of those top 5 cities above, Chicago is the only city that has more than 50,000 Asians aged 25+. If you must know - LA ranks 13th out of 33 cities and NYC ranks 28th out of 33 cities. Chicago's percentage is 7.25% higher than that of LA and 19.4% higher than that of NYC's.

[the urban politician]

Marothisu, this is really interesting stuff. So Chicago is booming with educated people of ALL races, really. But how do we interpret this data about Asians?

[Vlajos]

Originally Posted by marothisu

As the 2016 ACS data is out, a lot of interesting stuff. One interesting tidbit is that Chicago now has a higher median household income for households with an Asian householder than both NYC and LA. Houston has slightly higher than Chicago. Chicago in 2015 had the lowest median income of households with an Asian householder of the top 5 most populous cities but it's surged ahead of LA and NYC and is now thousands of dollars above both. Chicago increased for this category by almost $8300 from 2015 to 2016 while LA and NYC barely increased.

I guess some slightly positive news too is that the same thing for Black/African American householder increased by over $1000 per year for Chicago from 2015 to 2016. It's just barely below what the 2007 and 2008 ACS had. Unfortunately still lowest of the top 5 cities but I guess at least it's some increase. Cities like NYC and Houston had big (bigger than Chicago) increases for this.


As far as educational attainment goes, by race, here are the percent increases by major racial group. When I say +2% for example, I mean it could have gone up from 19% to 21%.

* White, Not Hispanic/Latino | +1.97% | +11,533 people
* Black/African American: +2.17% | +9642 people
* Asian: +3.73% | +6336 people
* Other Race: +1.15% | +2774 people
* Hispanic/Latino Alone: -1.21% | -3748 people

I noticed this the other day. Amazing that Chicago loses over 40,000 African Americans while gaining nearly 10,000 with college degrees.

[marothisu]

You can interpret it however you like. I'm just presenting the data because it's honestly surprising and amazing, especially the African American numbers. Still a long way to go but it's quite amazing that Chicago loses thousands of African Americans and yet still tops the list of city propers who added the most from 2015 to 2016 with a college degree.

To have a successful city, everyone must have good opportunity IMO so that's how I interpret it. I was talking to my girlfriend about the Asian data - both of us were surprised that NYC was so low and Chicago was far above SF, the city. We had an interesting conversation about immigration of Asians and maybe the cities that got earlier Asian immigration had lower. However, Chicago has actually older Asian immigration than most cities in the US and it's still high. She brought up Baltimore which is where she did he grad school. Most of the Asian people there came for jobs requiring college degrees or are there for grad school. Very low population but the attainment percentage there is 66%.

[IrishIllini]

Thanks for the data, Marothisu. Interesting that the number of latinos with degrees declined. Kind of surprised by that.

Does anyone have data regarding NYC's educational attainment as it rapidly gentrified in the early 90s? I wouldn't be surprised to see similar increases. Seems Chicago has really turned a corner here.

[ithakas]

I wonder if Rahm is touting the presence of the DMDII in Chicago as part of his HQ2 proposal – given all the work they're doing in supply chain analytics and advancements, it seems like another factor in Chicago's favor.

Related, I'd be curious to know if anyone has heard anything about DMDII since its opening?

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by IrishIllini

Thanks for the data, Marothisu. Interesting that the number of latinos with degrees declined. Kind of surprised by that.

Does anyone have data regarding NYC's educational attainment as it rapidly gentrified in the early 90s? I wouldn't be surprised to see similar increases. Seems Chicago has really turned a corner here.

I was surprised to see the attainment for Hispanic/Latino decline too.

As far as NYC goes, they've had big improvement too, but not as much as Chicago. I think in 1990, NYC was 3% or so higher than Chicago. Now Chicago is higher. If you compare against a bunch of other large or large ish cities, NYC is one of the top 5 or 10 increases. Dallas is dead last and LA and Houston are kind of middle. Austin is the only Texas city really in the same realm of increase as NYC and Chicago.

[IrishIllini]

Originally Posted by marothisu

I was surprised to see the attainment for Hispanic/Latino decline too.

As far as NYC goes, they've had big improvement too, but not as much as Chicago. I think in 1990, NYC was 3% or so higher than Chicago. Now Chicago is higher. If you compare against a bunch of other large or large ish cities, NYC is one of the top 5 or 10 increases. Dallas is dead last and LA and Houston are kind of middle. Austin is the only Texas city really in the same realm of increase as NYC and Chicago.

Dallas may quickly learn that if you bank on cheap housing being the draw to your region, you better keep housing cheap. Dallas is probably the most overrated metro area in the country - topping the Bay Area. It's incredibly boring and much of it could be Anywhere, USA (not in a positive way).

Surprised Houston has seen stronger growth than Dallas though. Maybe it's all the chemical engineers working in refineries? Not surprised that Austin is in the same realm as Chicago and NYC. It is home to the University of Texas and is relatively small to begin with.

[Justin_Chicago]

Lefkofsky's Tempus raises $70 million

Tempus, Eric Lefkofsky's cancer-data company, is getting a $70 million boost from some familiar partners: New Enterprise Associates and Revolution Growth. The two Washington, D.C.-area venture funds led a new round of financing that brings the total outside investments in Tempus to $130 million.

The latest round values the company at about $700 million.

Tempus was launched two years ago by Lefkofsky, who co-founded and was CEO of Groupon, after his wife had been treated for breast cancer. Since then, it's grown to about 200 people.

The past year has been a busy one as the company started signing up research centers and other hospitals as partners. Tempus is a big data play on oncology. Hospitals send patients to Tempus for genetic sequencing and analysis. The hospitals provide data, without information that could identify patients, back to Tempus. The company's software platform uses data to provide doctors information about treatment options for individual patients, showing how other patients with similar genetic profiles have responded to particular therapies.

Article: http://www.chicagobusiness.com/artic...nea-revolution

[Justin_Chicago]

Fooda gets $12.5 million for expansion

Fooda, which helps eliminate corporate food deserts, has raised $12.5 million to expand into more cities and broaden its menu.

The fast-growing company has raised nearly $35 million so far. The latest round was led by Valor Equity Partners, which first invested in Fooda four years ago. Other backers include Lightbank and KGC Capital.

Founded in 2011, Fooda ranked sixth on Crain's most-recent Fast 50 list of quickest-growing Chicago companies. Last year, it $48 million in revenue, more than double its sales in 2015. Headcount has risen to 207, up from 144 employees at the start of the year.

Fooda launched today in Washington, D.C., and has expanded from seven to 11 cities this year. "We want to continue that expansion effort," said CEO Orazio Buzza. "Our goal is to be in the top 50 cities."

Article: http://www.chicagobusiness.com/artic...y-valor-equity