Posted by Barton Lorimor
* The Old Post Office was, perhaps, the most recognizable and memorable part of Chicago’s HQ2 proposal, but it reportedly did not stick as well with Amazon representatives, who toured five other locations when they came to town.
So when Walgreens formally announced earlier this week it was moving nearly 1,300 jobs from its suburban Deerfield campus to the long-abandoned structure, the question of whether this signaled the end of Chicago’s hope for landing HQ2 was sure to come up…
“We have a very deep pipeline of interested tenants but someone had to be the first,” said Brian Whiting, founder and president of the Telos Group, which is representing 601W in leasing the building.
“It gives us momentum and it gives us credibility, and we are confident that we will be announcing additional commitments in the very near future,” Whiting said in an email.
Walgreens and Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Monday discussed details of the deal and unveiled renderings of the planned space in a news conference in the historic building’s lobby. The Tribune last week reported Walgreens’ plans to move into the building, and the company later confirmed plans to move 1,800 corporate employees there — 500 from a Loop office in the Sullivan Center and 1,300 from the company’s north suburban campus.
“We’re comfortable that we’re not going to be the only tenant here (in the Old Post Office),” said Joe Brady, vice president of real estate at Walgreens. “Frankly, we’re proud to be a catalyst to help this project go even faster.”
Is Amazon one of those tenants in the pipeline?
“We’ve been plowing forward with different tenants, so I think at this point—we’re going a different direction,” Whiting said. “We’re not waiting for them, and we’re on to the next and best thing.”
Hizzoner…
The mayor is trying to play things close to his vest so as not to anger Amazon as he and mayors across the U.S. wait for the company to conclude its lengthy, secretive process to decide where to locate its second headquarters and as many as 50,000 employees.
But asked Monday whether Walgreens’ decision to locate 1,800 employees at the old post office in the South Loop takes that building off the table for Amazon, Emanuel offered some insights.
“I don’t want to violate anything with Amazon, so I think when you — know this, let me do it this way so I’m not (violating), I want to be careful,” Emanuel said. “On our original proposal to Amazon we had 10 sites. When they came, they saw five sites. It is our understanding they like, really like, two sites. So let me say that.”
* Meanwhile, the love for the Foxconn deal just keeps on coming…
Gurnee Mayor Kristina Kovarik said she is concerned that they haven’t seen any sort of stormwater management plan for the project, which is set to break ground later this month.
Kovarik said the project will turn hundreds or thousands of acres of farmland into impermeable surface that if not properly managed could increase the amount of rain that runs down the Des Plaines River.
“When that water comes out of Wisconsin, we’re the first community it really hits,” Kovarik said. “We’re built right on the river. We have major arteries that get shut down from flooding.”
- wordslinger - Tuesday, Jun 19, 18 @ 10:26 am:
Meh, if I’m Amazon, I want a chunk of that undeveloped 62 acres on the river where they’re talking the Discovery Partners Institute or nothing at all.
- 47th Ward - Tuesday, Jun 19, 18 @ 10:43 am:
I tend to agree with Word. Amazon isn’t going to want to squeeze itself into an existing structure. For HQ2, it wants a statement building, a custom designed headquarters for the 22nd century. They’ll want to have a competition to design it and that will attract every architect on the planet.
The old Post Office building is nice, but I don’t think it was ever really in the running for this. FWIW, I also don’t think Amazon is going to choose Chicago period, but I hope I’m wrong about that.
- Macbeth - Tuesday, Jun 19, 18 @ 10:44 am:
—
For HQ2, it wants a statement building, a custom designed headquarters for the 22nd century. They’ll want to have a competition to design it and that will attract every architect on the planet.
—
Sure. Why not. Worked out well for George Lucas.
- siriusly - Tuesday, Jun 19, 18 @ 10:52 am:
I don’t know if Chicago is in the running but this is a very impressive series annoucements coming out of Rahm’s office: super train to O’Hare, Walgreens, etc. This is the sort of activity that helps create a positive buzz about a City’s business environment.
FoxConn and the digusting corruption at the EPA is bad news for anyone downwind or downstream from that plant. Any politician who wants votes in NE IL should be screaming about how the EPA is waiving it’s review process and giving that plant carte blance to pollute our water and air.
- Adam Jacob - Tuesday, Jun 19, 18 @ 10:54 am:
47th Ward — I hope you’re right.
- Anon - Tuesday, Jun 19, 18 @ 10:55 am:
The post office was never a good fit for Amazon. The exposed and publicly accessible underside of the building is a major security liability for such a high-profile company.
- Roman - Tuesday, Jun 19, 18 @ 11:05 am:
Word and 47 are right — picking the post office over the virgin land sites on either end of the river never made sense.
Not that it matters much. It’s a major upset if Amazon doesn’t go to the DC area.
- DeseDemDose - Tuesday, Jun 19, 18 @ 11:05 am:
Governor Walker and his band of merry Republicans don’t even care what environmental damage Foxconn does to Wisconsin much less Illinois.
- 47th Ward - Tuesday, Jun 19, 18 @ 11:07 am:
Adam, why do you hope Amazon chooses another city? Do you really hate Chicago that much?
- City Zen - Tuesday, Jun 19, 18 @ 11:10 am:
If you’re gonna be on every street corner, you might as well have an office above the street.
- wordslinger - Tuesday, Jun 19, 18 @ 11:24 am:
Still, the private-money redevelopment for realsies of the Old Post Office is a remarkable story. I never thought it would happen.
Walgreen’s could put their IT, digital and servers anywhere in the country. But they’re confident that the international whiz kid labor pool will dig hanging on the roof of the old colossus straddling the Ike. (Just wait til they find out the bank robbery scene in “The Dark Knight” was filmed there).
Even more surprising is the billion-dollar private redevelopment of old Cook County Hospital for mixed use hotel/office/retail. Who thought that would ever happen?
$600 million is getting plowed into the post office, $1 billion into the hospital. That private capital could seek profit any number of ways, anywhere in the world. Yet look where it’s going.
Maybe Katrina should interview the bankrollers and tenants for those projects to find out what they just don’t understand from her Illinois Exodus tantrums.
- BlueDogDem - Tuesday, Jun 19, 18 @ 11:24 am:
I think if we up the ante, say another $5 billion or so, we can get Chicago back in the game. How about a city earnings tax on existing businesses and an exemption for Amazon. ?
- 47th Ward - Tuesday, Jun 19, 18 @ 11:27 am:
===How about a city earnings tax===
How about we tax old downstate blowhards?
- Arthur Andersen - Tuesday, Jun 19, 18 @ 11:32 am:
Easy there, 47. AA needs a carve out.
- Actual Red - Tuesday, Jun 19, 18 @ 11:34 am:
47th-
I love Chicago, but I also don’t think I want HQ2 here. Look at the area where HQ1 and all the other tech giants are. Poor, working, and middle class people have essentially been purged from silicon valley. Sure, HQ2 creates jobs, but most of them are going to be white collar jobs that go to folks who went to expensive colleges. They mostly aren’t going to people who most need them here. And the people who do get the regular people jobs are going to be increasingly driven out of the city as the software developers and marketing strategists move in.
Chicago needs investment, but like the hyperloop, HQ2 is investment by and for the capital class, not the people increasingly fleeing the concentrated poverty on the south and west sides.
Maybe I am in a particularly negative mood after reading this article this morning: https://harpers.org/archive/2018/07/the-death-of-new-york-city-gentrification/
- cathrynpeyser89 - Tuesday, Jun 19, 18 @ 11:51 am:
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- Anonymous - Tuesday, Jun 19, 18 @ 11:53 am:
Amazon isn’t picking Chicago, pure and simple.
- alyciaplace - Tuesday, Jun 19, 18 @ 12:08 pm:
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- margaretastrickl - Tuesday, Jun 19, 18 @ 12:15 pm:
It’s impressive that you are getting ideas from this paragraph as well as from our argument made here.
- wordslinger - Tuesday, Jun 19, 18 @ 12:24 pm:
–Amazon isn’t picking Chicago, pure and simple.–
Hilarious. You pretend to have some inside dope as to the decision-making.
It’s like saying “the Patriots won’t win the Super Bowl this year, pure and simple.” Odds are that’s correct, simply because of the number of possible winners. But it’s not based on any insight.
- BlueDogDem - Tuesday, Jun 19, 18 @ 12:37 pm:
47th. Those folks up there in St. LOO had a chance to rescind theirs a few years back and overwhelmingly kept it. I think the fine folks in the windy city would welcome an earnings tax with open arms. When I lived in Lincoln Park for those five years I even invited the tax assessor into my newly remodeled master bathroom. You should have seen his eyes light up when he saw that shiny new toilet….
- Bernie_from_gurnee - Tuesday, Jun 19, 18 @ 1:22 pm:
Mayor Kovarik, where was the kvetching when umpteen hundreds of acres were paved over for Six Flags and the Outlet Mall all those years ago?
- 47th Ward - Tuesday, Jun 19, 18 @ 1:52 pm:
===Who thought that would ever happen?===
Larry Suffredin.
- Da Big Bad Wolf - Tuesday, Jun 19, 18 @ 1:56 pm:
==Mayor Kovarik, where was the kvetching when umpteen hundreds of acres were paved over for Six Flags and the Outlet Mall all those years ago?==
Mayor Kristina Kovarik moved to Gurnee in 1992. Gurnee Mills opened in 1991 and Great America opened in 1976. Ms. Kovarick might think about water once in a while. She serves on the Lake County Stormwater Management Commission and the Central Lake County Water Agency.
- 47th Ward - Tuesday, Jun 19, 18 @ 2:35 pm:
===AA needs a carve out.===
You’ll be fine. Lol.
- Anonymous - Tuesday, Jun 19, 18 @ 3:04 pm:
Word, you take Chicago and I will take the field.
- blue dog dem - Tuesday, Jun 19, 18 @ 3:10 pm:
Speaking of Chicago, has Ron been banished?
- Arthur Andersen - Tuesday, Jun 19, 18 @ 4:59 pm:
Blue Dog, he’s at the factory being refurbished.
To the Post, the site we all like for Amazon went up S—- Creek today when Rauner broke ground on the U of I Discovery Partners Institute. Wonder if Rahm was there? He said he loved UIUC and “wished he went there.” AA opined elsewhere that, had that been the case, he definitely woulda gotten punched out in front of Kam’s.
- wordslinger - Tuesday, Jun 19, 18 @ 5:42 pm:
–To the Post, the site we all like for Amazon went up S—- Creek today when Rauner broke ground on the U of I Discovery Partners Institute. –
They didn’t actually break ground on anything; nothing’s being built. It was just a yakfest.
If Amazon wants it, I’m sure they would get any chunk of that 62 acres they want. This ain’t like the Lucas Museum, where the dude wanted to empty the junk from his attic and garage on prime lakefront property.
By the way, after first demanding the sweetest spot by the ocean in San Francisco at the Presidio, then the lakefront in Chicago, Lucas ended up in South LA by USC and the Coliseum.
Not exactly Santa Monica or Venice beach.
- Arthur Andersen - Tuesday, Jun 19, 18 @ 9:13 pm:
word, I read a tweet that turned out to be inoperative. Sorry about that. Agree that Amazon trumps, pardon the expression, even the Big U.
Mr and Mrs. Lucas must be deeply chagrined to find how few real friends they have.
- Chicago 20 - Tuesday, Jun 19, 18 @ 10:14 pm:
Mayor Kristina Kovarik needs to build a dam to keep that rainwater from flooding Illinois.