CHICAGO | Economic & Business Development

[the urban politician]

Yep, 80% leased when the thing is still a ways from being completed is pretty damn strong leasing.

I'm wagering that Thor and SB both will get started on their next respective towers soon.

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by LouisVanDerWright

Sterling Bay is saying Gr333n is 80% leased right now. I'd say that's a vote in favor of starting the next one...

SB has so many irons in the fire, I'm not sure what their strategy is. Even with Gr333n being 80% leased, SB has several other towers on the drawing board in Fulton Market alone.

I guess they're just queuing up growth opportunities for the next decade or more, but at some point won't they have to ramp up leasing activity for Lincoln Yards? That could jeopardize the leasing in West Loop. Both sets of developments are chasing the same kinds of tenants... and most potential tenants will probably come into it with a strong preference for West Loop over Lincoln Yards, so SB would have to give them the hard sell.

[LouisVanDerWright]

Yeah, but no one is going to want to locate in Lincoln Yards soooo...

[k1052]

Originally Posted by ardecila

SB has so many irons in the fire, I'm not sure what their strategy is. Even with Gr333n being 80% leased, SB has several other towers on the drawing board in Fulton Market alone.

I guess they're just queuing up growth opportunities for the next decade or more, but at some point won't they have to ramp up leasing activity for Lincoln Yards? That could jeopardize the leasing in West Loop. Both sets of developments are chasing the same kinds of tenants... and most potential tenants will probably come into it with a strong preference for West Loop over Lincoln Yards, so SB would have to give them the hard sell.

LY is probably more firms like CH Robinson than advertising/marketing/tech/food HQ like Fulton is or legacy company(ies) looking to make a move almost (but not quite) downtown to get at the workforce.

[bnk]

https://www.chicagobusiness.com/comm...e-feet-Chicago



June 18, 2019 11:14 AM |updated 39 minutes ago



WeWork hits 1 million square feet in Chicago


The co-working provider has a new deal to open a location on the top floors of 625 W. Adams in the West Loop.





Co-working giant WeWork is opening another Chicago location in a new West Loop office building, bringing its total downtown footprint to a size few have achieved.

The New York-based firm leased three of the top floors of a 20-story office building at 625 W. Adams St., according to sources familiar with the deal.

It's the 12th Chicago lease WeWork has inked as it leads a rapid spread of shared-office providers in the city, and it brings the company to more than 1 million square feet of offices downtown.

That benchmark highlights its breakneck expansion pace amid rampant demand for flexible office space that tenants can lease on a month-to-month basis. Small businesses and large corporations alike have become frequent users of co-working, feeding a leasing land-grab among WeWork and rivals like Spaces, Industrious, Convene and others.


...

“In addition to a great location and proximity to transit options, WeWork 625 W Adams will provide our members with beautiful, flexible workspace and access to a wealth of retail, dining and residential amenities being developed in the area,” WeWork Midwest General Manager Megan Dodds said in the statement. “By continuing to expand in Chicago, we look forward to providing more companies of all sizes with the space and global community they need to succeed.”


...

[marothisu]

Crisp launches North American HQ in Chicago, plans to make 50 hires in a year

https://www.builtinchicago.org/2019/...chicago-new-hq

U.K. company Crisp closed a $25 million funding round last October. How’s it celebrating? By coming to Chicago.

On Tuesday, Crisp announced that it’s opening its new North American headquarters in Chicago. The Chicago office will be the home base for Crisp’s North American operations and will help the company expand its business across the world.

Crisp labels itself as a “social media safety” firm. The company has partnered with several Fortune 500 and enterprise-scale companies in order to monitor their social media channels and protect their brand image.

The growing need for this social media protection has led the 14 year-old company to experience 87 percent year-over-year growth in 2018. And Crisp aims to keep this momentum.

Crisp is hoping to add 25 to 30 employees to its new Chicago office in the next three to six months, and approximately 50 in the next 12 months. Worldwide, the company plans to double its employee headcount over the next year.

Chicago proves to be the perfect city for Crisp’s new headquarters, according to the company, thanks to its rapidly growing tech scene and its access to top brands and talent.

Adam Hildreth, the CEO and founder of Crisp, has a special affinity for the city.

“Chicago’s central location, proximity to the Fortune 500 and top tech talent pool made it the obvious choice for Crisp’s North American headquarters,” Hildreth said in a statement. “We want to be the very best partner to our customers, which is why we are eager to capitalize on the incredible resources Chicago provides growing tech companies and the businesses they work with.”

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Boro, which helps young borrowers secure loans, raises $6M Series A

https://www.builtinchicago.org/2019/...ro-6m-series-a

To take out loans, you need good credit. But in order to get good credit, you need to take out loans.

This paradox makes it hard for first-time borrowers to secure their first loan or credit card without getting taken advantage of by lenders.

Boro is trying to make getting that first loan easier, and it just closed a $6 million Series A to do so.

Boro is an online lending platform that specializes in providing loans to college students and other young applicants who have trouble getting a solid FICO credit score. Instead, the company assesses creditworthiness using a machine learning algorithm that looks at an individual’s financial status and future earning potential.

The Series A brings Boro’s total funding to $8.6 million. The company is based in Chicago, but it's looking to use these funds to expand across the country. The company is currently hiring for a range of roles including in marketing and engineering.

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Healthtech company Collective Health closes massive $205M funding round

https://www.builtinchicago.org/2019/...-funding-round

This new round of funding will help the company grow even more. The company is headquartered in San Francisco, with offices in Chicago and Lehi, Utah. A spokesperson for Collective Health told Built In that it’ll expand its workforce in all three of its offices, including Chicago.

The company is currently hiring roles for its sales, engineering and customer experience teams.

[the urban politician]

More info about all of the higher ed goodies the State is doling out with the new budget:

https://www.chicagobusiness.com/educ...er-ed-spending

[bnk]

Some signal of industrial slowness. No layoffs yet. One of four furnaces will idle. No timetable when it would restart.



https://www.nwitimes.com/business/lo...1c6ce6347.html




U.S. Steel to idle blast furnace at Gary Works


U.S. Steel plans to temporarily idle a blast furnace at Gary Works as it looks to reduce production capacity amid falling steel prices, orders and revenue.

The Pittsburgh-based steelmaker, one of Northwest Indiana's largest employers, said the idling of one of the three south blast furnaces at its flagship steel mill on the Gary lakefront was only temporary, but it had no timeline for bringing the furnace back online. The company did not immediately return a request for information about whether employees would be laid off or furloughed.

A memo sent to steelworkers said that there would be no immediate impact on employment levels at the mill, but that the company is "mindful of the impact these announcements have on employees and their families."

Gary Works operates three other blast furnaces, which convert iron ore and other raw materials into the pig iron that's turned into steel for cars, appliances and countless other products.

U.S. Steel also plans to leave the Great Lakes B2 blast furnace near Detroit idled after the completion of a planned maintenance outage that started last week.

As a result of the idlings, the company expects to reduce blast furnace production capacity of pig iron by 200,000 to 225,000 tons a month starting in July.

"If both furnaces remain idled for the remainder of the year, we expect full year flat-rolled shipments to third-party customers to be approximately 11 million tons," the company said in a news release announcing the idling. "We will resume blast furnace production at one or both idled blast furnaces when market conditions improve."

The company also plans to idle a blast furnace in Europe that has a production capacity of 125,000 tons a month. It will cut production by 3.6 million tons if it remains idled for the year.



…

. "Additionally, second quarter shipments are lower than we expected due to flooding in the southern United States, which has limited the availability of barges and our ability to ship finished product to customers over the past few weeks.

...

[bnk]

https://www.chicagobusiness.com/manu...-chicago-plant

June 24, 2019 02:40 PM | 18 hours ago



Ford unveils $1 billion upgrade at Chicago plant



The automaker has added new equipment and hired 500 people across its plants on Torrence Avenue and in Chicago Heights.



Ford has finished a $1 billion renovation at its two Chicago-area plants, adding 600 robots, 3-D printers and improved employee amenities.

The Torrence Avenue assembly plant and Chicago Heights stamping plant build the bestselling Ford Explorer, as well as its law enforcement cousin, the Police Interceptor. The plants also are building the new 2020 Lincoln Aviator.

Ford reworks plants to build more SUVs with same headcount


As part of the revamp, Ford hired 500 new workers between the Torrence Avenue assembly plant and the Chicago Heights stamping plant, bringing the total to about 6,500, including salaried employees. The popularity of the Explorer has the Chicago plant running three shifts, 24 hours a day.


...

[bnk]

Finally an international acquisition, not a suburban relocation. Three years ago Pfizer was willing to pay 160 Billion dollars for Allergen but the deal broke down.



http://www.chicagotribune.com/busine...t7a-story.html


Illinois-based drugmaker AbbVie to buy rival Allergan in $63 billion ‘transformative’ deal


Lisa Schencker



| Chicago Tribune |

Jun 25, 2019 | 11:57 AM




AbbVie headquarters are seen in north suburban Abbott Park in 2014. On June 25, 2019, the company announced it is buying Allergan in a cash-and-stock deal valued at around $63 billion. (E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune)



North Chicago-based drugmaker AbbVie is buying Botox-maker Allergan for $63 billion in cash and stock — a deal designed to reduce AbbVie’s reliance on its blockbuster medication Humira, which will soon face competition in the U.S.



AbbVie said it will pay $188.24 per share in cash and stock for Dublin-based Allergan, representing a 45% premium to Allergan’s closing share price Monday. AbbVie’s headquarters will remain in North Chicago, and its CEO Richard Gonzalez will lead the combined company.



The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2020, pending regulatory approval. The acquisition could create the fourth-largest biopharmaceutical company in the world, Gonzalez said.

...


Gonzalez said the acquisition is expected to yield $2 billion in annual cost savings by its third year, partly through “elimination of redundant infrastructure.”



AbbVie spokeswoman Adelle Infante said after the call that all of the operations now in North Chicago are expected to stay in North Chicago. She said she couldn’t comment on whether the combination might lead to layoffs or relocation of Allergan jobs or operations to the Chicago area....



AbbVie spun off from north suburban Abbott Laboratories six years ago and has about 30,000 employees worldwide.



...

Tuesday's announcement isn't the first time AbbVie has gone after an Irish drug company.

...













https://www.irishtimes.com/business/...deal-1.3936938

AbbVie to buy Irish-headquartered Allergan in $63bn deal

Deal is expected to add 10% to adjusted earnings per share over the first full year


about 6 hours ago

Allergan is headquartered in the Republic of Ireland


Drugmaker AbbVie, which employs 600 people locally, said on Tuesday it would buy Botox-maker Allergan for about $63 billion, grabbing control of by far the biggest name in medical aesthetics to help reduce its reliance on blockbuster arthritis treatment Humira.

AbbVie has been under pressure to diversify its portfolio as Humira, the world’s best-selling drug, faces competition from cheaper versions in Europe.

Allergan chief executive Brent Saunders put together the current version of the company through a series of deals to roll up several pharmaceutical firms in 2014, and has run the company since then.

He built his reputation as a dealmaker, but his company has struggled since Pfizer walked away from a $160 billion deal to buy Allergan, which employs about 1,700 people in the Republic, in 2016.


...

[marothisu]

Cameo lands $50 million in deal led by Kleiner Perkins

https://www.chicagobusiness.com/john...leiner-perkins

Kleiner Perkins is betting Cameo’s appearance on the media-tech scene will be anything but fleeting.

The Chicago-based tech company, which built a marketplace that allows consumers to pay athletes and other celebrities to give video shoutouts to the recipients of their choice, raised another $50 million from investors led by Kleiner, one of the most prestigious venture funds in Silicon Valley.

It’s one more sign that the improbable business—which started out connecting D-list celebrities with the masses for a few bucks each—has caught fire.

The two-year-old company says 275,000 shoutouts have been completed on the platform. Cameo raised $12.5 million in November led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, and it was growing faster than expected.


On average, customers are paying $62 per video, nearly triple the amount just 12 months ago. Cameo keeps 25 percent. The list of celebrities is about 15,000. Recent additions include Snoop Dogg (who also is an investor in the company), Antonio Brown, Tony Hawk and Charlie Sheen, who joined a stable of stars that includes Brett Favre, Brian Urlacher, Mark Messier and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

...

Cameo has grown from 22 employees at the beginning of this year to more than 100 and could hit 150 by year-end.

---


ReviewTrackers raises $10M Series B to hire over 100 people in Chicago

https://www.builtinchicago.org/2019/...eries-b-hiring

On Tuesday, ReviewTrackers announced that it closed a $10 million Series B funding round. That brings the company’s total funding to $17.6 million.

Chris Campbell, the CEO of ReviewTrackers, told Built In that the next step for the company is rapid growth.

Right now, over 65,000 businesses use ReviewTrackers, but the company expects to pass 100,000 this year. It’s also looking to expand its product to use predictive capabilities and deep text analysis to give businesses advice on how to improve based off of aggregated reviews.

And the company is ramping up hiring. ReviewTrackers currently has 55 employees and is looking to nearly triple in the next year, hiring over 100 people for its Chicago office. The hiring will help ReviewTracker expand its sales, engineering, product and customer success teams, as well as grow the company across the board.

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Showpad Raises $70M, Plans to Add 35 Chicago Jobs

https://www.americaninno.com/chicago...-chicago-jobs/

Showpad, the Belgium-based sales enablement tech company that has a large Chicago presence, just raised a new round of funding as it looks to add jobs to its seven offices across the globe.

The company announced Tuesday that it raised $70 million in debt and equity in a Series D round of funding.

..

With the new financing, Showpad said it will develop new products and add more than 200 new jobs across its global workforce, 35 of which will be in Chicago.

Showpad’s software helps companies in a swath of industries, including manufacturing, healthcare, technology and financial services, increase the size of their sales deals by improving buyer engagement.

[the urban politician]

A little tidbit from Bisnow:

Skender, serving as general contractor, completed the 30K SF interior build-out at 500 West Monroe St. for Corix Group of Cos. The water, wastewater and energy utility firm consolidated its offices across North America to downtown Chicago. The new offices will immediately house approximately 70 employees. The West Loop location, close to suburban train lines, will allow the firm to draw talent from the both city and the suburbs, Corix officials said. Skender collaborated with architecture firm Nelson, owner’s representative Colliers International and engineering firm Environmental Systems Design to complete the project.

Read more at: https://www.bisnow.com/chicago/news/...medium=Browser

[the urban politician]

COATES GROUP REVEALS NEW WEST LOOP INNOVATION LAB AND OFFICE

Chicago, IL, June 25, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) --

Coates Group officially opened the doors of its new, dynamic office space and Innovation Lab in the heart of Chicago’s bustling West Loop, a neighbourhood that has transformed from factories and warehouses to a sought-after residential, dining and office destination over the past five years. Coates’ North American headquarters is located on the corner of May and Randolph Streets in the first and second loft-style floors of a former belt factory, just blocks from other notable offices like Google, McDonald’s, Sterling Bay and more.

Just three years after first arriving in Chicago with a core team of five, Coates’ US headquarters now hosts a team of over 80 employees.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/coate...192840203.html

[the urban politician]

Another crypto exchange opening a local office, and a British fintech company opening their US HQ here:

https://www.chicagobusiness.com/fina...xpands-chicago

https://www.builtinchicago.org/2019/...arters-chicago

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

Another crypto exchange opening a local office, and a British fintech company opening their US HQ here:

https://www.chicagobusiness.com/fina...xpands-chicago

Gemini is one of the big exchanges so that's pretty good news. The founders of course created ConnectU, before Facebook, and then sued Mark Zuckerberg over it back in 2004 for stealing their idea. They got $65M out of that and are billionaires now.

https://www.builtinchicago.org/2019/...arters-chicago

Not bad for a company only a few years old. Hopefully they are good and expand in Chicago a bit.

Speaking of expanding to Chicago..

On-Demand Staffing Startup BlueCrew Growing Chicago Presence After Relocating from San Francisco

https://www.americaninno.com/chicago...san-francisco/

As more and more coastal tech companies are betting on Chicago as a city where they can flourish, a San Francisco on-demand staffing company is hiring dozens of people in the Windy City after relocating its headquarters to Chicago earlier this year.

BlueCrew, founded in 2015, operates an on-demand job platform for applicants looking for low-skilled jobs, such as movers, cash register operators and forklift drivers. The tech company announced that it was moving from its home of San Francisco to Chicago in March, and it now employs more than 30 people in its offices inside the Merchandise Mart.

BlueCrew CEO Adam Roston said the company chose to relocate its headquarters to Chicago because of the city’s large industrial market, its growing tech talent pool and because the cost of living is cheaper in Chicago than in other tech hubs, like the Bay Area or New York.

“As we started growing, we realized that San Francisco wasn’t a great long-term home for BlueCrew,” said Roston, who joined the company as CEO in March. “It’s a competitive area for hiring and retaining talent, and it’s also not a great industrial and commercial market because it’s so expensive to be there.”

When BlueCrew opened its Chicago office, former mayor Rahm Emanuel was there to cut the ribbon. At the time, the city said that BlueCrew was joining a group of more than 80 technology companies that have or have pledged to relocate to Chicago or grow their footprint in the city.

Fintech company Tegus also relocated their headquarters from San Francisco to Chicago in March.


..

“Everyone knows there’s a lot of talent in San Francisco, Seattle, L.A. and New York, but there’s just as great of talent in Chicago,” Roston said. “There’s tons of great universities around here and it attracts a lot of talent from around the Midwest.”

Since opening the new Chicago office, BlueCrew has been on a hiring spree, saying it plans to fill 100 new roles across engineering, operations, customer support and finance roles over the next year.

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Fast-Growing Suburban Software Firm Vistex Opens Chicago Office

https://www.americaninno.com/chicago...hicago-office/

I believe they are going to open up a larger West Loop office..

Following a large round of funding earlier this year, Hoffman Estates-based software maker Vistex is opening a new office in downtown Chicago.

Vistex announced Wednesday that it’s opening an 8,000-square-foot office space at 1 E. Wacker Drive. The office plans to hold 50 new employees in sales, marketing and engineering roles.

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Also Livongo Health filed for its IPO - though it's technically based in Mountain View, CA. The CEO, Glen Tullman, is based in Chicago..

[marothisu]

German Aerospace Manufacturer Chooses Elk Grove Village For U.S. HQ

https://www.americaninno.com/chicago...ge-for-u-s-hq/

Broetje-Automation, a German aerospace and aviation manufacturer, is putting its U.S. headquarters in Elk Grove Village’s Technology Park, making it the Park’s first tenant, the company announced Monday.

The company’s new HQ will occupy more than 43,000 square feet and serve as a production facility for manufacturing and assembling robotic systems and automated composite manufacturing equipment.

Broetje-Automation plans to begin operations in the new outpost in October and hire more than 80 people to work there in the coming years. Broetje-Automation says it will hire specialized machine builders with mechanical and electrical skills, engineers of several disciplines, as well as office personnel.

[jpIllInoIs]

^ Good to hear an aerospace HQ and manufacturing moving into the area and near OHare. Build some synergy with existing aerospace companies along I-90 out to RFD.

[jpIllInoIs]

Chicago continues attract companies in food science and service - no doubt to be near hamburger hq.

Golden State Foods opens food science research center in West Loop.

Irvine, California-based Golden State Foods (GSF) unveiled their newest office space and Innovation Center in Chicago’s West Loop neighborhood. The space features product development workstations and was designed to be a food innovation hub as well as to replicate full-scale plant production systems for efficient commercialization.

The 4,300-square-foot space, which recently won the People’s Choice Award from the International Interior Design Association (IIDA), was designed by Ware Malcomb. Summit Design + Build acted as contractor.

“As GSF continues to grow as a global food manufacturer across five continents, we’re continuing to increase our collaboration with our customers who rely on GSF to bring new and innovative food concepts that support their brands,” said Brian Dick, corporate senior vice president, global manufacturing for GSF. “With this goal in mind, GSF is investing in new talent, facilities and technology all over the world in order to continue to be a true partner to our strategic customers.”

The Innovation Center is the tenth to be developed for GSF, which has food manufacturing facilities servicing iconic customers all throughout the world. Other centers are located in Arkansas City, Kansas; Auckland, New Zealand; Cairo, Egypt; City of Industry, California; Conyers, Georgia; Guangzhou, China; Shanghai, China; Sydney, Australia and Wellington, New Zealand.

The ten Innovation Centers provide the right environment for quality experts, nutritionists, chefs, food scientists and regulatory specialists to collaborate with GSF customers to develop hundreds of new products each year. Due to increased consumer demand for cleaner labels worldwide, these experts also leverage the Innovation Centers to develop signature products with healthier and more recognizable ingredients.

[BrinChi]

Companies moved into more downtown offices over the past two quarters than in the previous seven quarters combined.

Thanks to another big wave of tenants moving into downtown offices, vacancy in the central business district fell to 12.8 percent in the second quarter, according to real estate services firm CBRE. That was down from 13 percent at the end of the first quarter and the lowest mark since fourth-quarter 2016.

Tenants posted another monster quarter in demand: Net absorption, which measures the change in the amount of leased and occupied space compared with the prior period, was up almost 460,000 square feet for the second straight quarter, CBRE data show. That means companies moved into more space during the first half of this year than during the previous seven quarters combined, according to the brokerage.

It's all evidence of a thriving downtown office market in which supply and demand have grown in near-lockstep, with vacancy hovering around 13 percent for 2½ years and leading to gradually rising rents in the city.

[the urban politician]

Great potential news for Hoffman Estates.

On oversees publicly traded manufacturer is negotiating to put is NA HQ there:

https://www.dailyherald.com/business...nufacturing-hq