Business interests still come to Chicago despite Trump trash talk. Maybe he doesn't know of what he speaks?

I remember during the times of my life I lived in downstate Illinois (Bloomington, while in college, and Springfield for a stint working at the Statehouse), the locals would always refute my Chicagoness by pointing out the major corporate entities that considered central Illinois to be home.

Could this road symbolically lead to Chicago for Caterpillar?

There was Archer Daniels-Midland in Decatur. Then, the big gun, Caterpillar, in Peoria, the manufacturer of farm machinery and vehicles used by agriculture interests the world over.

ANYBODY INTERESTED IN farming or food or eating ought to know of Caterpillar. Or ADM, which processes grains and soybeans into products that can be turned into food.

I don’t deny those are significant corporate entities in their own right. But I can’t help but note that ADM left Decatur a couple of years ago; following the lead of the central Illinois city’s one-time National Football League team, which came to Chicago and became the Bears many decades ago.

Now, Caterpillar seems to be following their lead.

Corporate officials said this week that their top executives are moving from their offices at the main plant in Peoria to a yet-to-be-determined site in Chicago. They want access to life in a large city like Chicago, rather than small-city life of Peoria. They also like the idea of being a short drive away from O’Hare International Airport, from which they can go anywhere in the world!

IT MAY ALSO be that corporate types want to be able to follow the Chicago Cubs themselves, rather than rooting for their local Midwest League ball club and spending their time reminiscing of the days when it was a Cubs’ minor league affiliate (it’s now with the St. Louis Cardinals).

 

No longer dreaming of Cubs' one-time affiliate

One bit of consolation for the Peoria people – corporate officials say it’s just the corporate offices. The actual plant in Peoria where equipment is made will remain there. Few of the 12,000 people employed in Peoria will be out of work because of the move.

Who knows? They may come to like having the top brass located elsewhere. While we in Chicago will love being able to say we’re the corporate offices of yet another business entity. Not bad at a time when President Donald J. Trump, for purely partisan political reasons, seems determined to come up with weekly attacks on Chicago.

As though he wants the world to think that our fair city is as ugly as that 1,389-foot tall building he erected along the Chicago River.

If Chicago Bears could once play a season at Memorial Stadium, why not Fighting Illini games in Chicago?

ALTHOUGH THE MOVE makes me wonder now what business entities rural Illinois types will be able to cite when they tout their region? Perhaps they’ll start boasting of the many state universities located in the rest of Illinois – particularly the University of Illinois.

Though one could argue that all you’d have to do is move the Big Ten athletic programs of the Fighting Illini to the Chicago campus, and the UI-C would take over that school’s niche in the state.

Although I’m sure that to the people of Urbana-Champaign (or should it be Champaign-Urbana), that very notion constitutes “fightin’ words” worse than the notion of Caterpillar sending a piece of itself to Chicago.

Could one-time U.S. Steel plant along the lakefront ...

Yet this isn’t the only outside interest we’re seeing these days. I couldn’t help but notice the talk this week of a company ultimately based in Barcelona, Spain, wanting to take the one-time site of U.S. Steel’s Southworks plant and convert it into homes.

SPECIFICALLY, SOME 12,000 homes, to be built in four phases of 3,000 each – with certain communal amenities meant to try to create a spirit of community.

Not that the area, which is adjacent to the South Chicago and South Shore neighborhoods, couldn’t use some freshening up. South Chicago in particular (the neighborhood I was born in, for what it’s worth) has old housing stock.

... truly become the 8080 Lakeshore housing development.? Image provided by Barcelona Housing

But any chance this project by Barcelona Housing Systems (with offices in San Francisco) and WELink has of succeeding depends on whether they can make the existing surrounding working-class residents feel like they’re not being rejected for potentially upscale newcomers. That is a large part of why a past developer’s talk of turning the 430-acre site along Lake Michigan from 79^th Street to the Calumet River never got off the ground.

Yet still interesting to see that at a time when Trump wants to undermine our city by making it appear too much of a hell hole to want to have anything to do with, interests as diverse as Caterpillar and Barcelona see money to be made in Chicago; which makes me think we ought to be questioning Trump’s own business instincts – instead of taking anything he says all that seriously.

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What exactly is a “pro-business” state?

I’m sure that a segment of society – the part that calls itself “economic conservative” and “pro-business” – is gnashing its teeth and seething with rage at the thought that a major company deliberately chose to locate in Chicago.

Even though state government specifically refused to give the company – Archer Daniels Midland, Co., of downstate Decatur, Ill. – a tax incentive that it claimed was essential to making the move economically viable.

ADM, A PROCESSOR of crops into food and other products such as fuel, has long been the staple of the economy in Decatur. But life in central Illinois isn’t cosmopolitan enough for the corporate executives who run the company.

Which is why, earlier this year, ADM officials let it be known that they want to move their corporate offices elsewhere – under the guise of wanting easier access to airline flights for their executives to travel the world on business.

That made Chicago, with its O’Hare International and Midway airports, a natural.

Except to those who are determined to believe that nobody could possibly want to be associated with Chicago, They were the ones who were pushing the idea that Illinois would lose ADM unless it got with the program, so to speak, and started making concessions to businesses even if they made no practical sense.

IN THE CASE of ADM, they wanted to be given a tax incentive totaling $24 million during the next two decades. Which really is laughable – a tax break over just over $1 million per year for a corporation that does billions of dollars of business per year world-wide.

The real issue was one of a corporate entity thinking that government somehow exists to serve it exclusively – even if those interests contradict those of other people. Personally, I always thought the point of government was to keep the interests of everyone balanced.

As it turned out, the Illinois Senate took a vote in favor of the ADM request. But the Illinois House of Representatives never got around to it.

They stayed

Other issues always managed to pre-empt it from coming up for a vote – particularly the matter of pension funding reform that the Legislature acted upon earlier this month in special session.

IT SEEMS THE allure of Chicago was too much for the ADM officials to pass on – even if they technically reduced their offer and are now merely moving some executive positions to the Second City, rather than following through on their original thought that they would also develop a technology center where great scientific advances in agriculture would have been developed.

That would have been an interesting piece to have in Chicago; probably moreso than the presence of a few dozen suited executives who will now work in the downtown area and will be lost in the masses of the millions who flood into the Loop each day to earn a living.

Although if the dollar figures work out, it wouldn’t shock me to learn that ADM develops that piece of their corporate puzzle in the future.

But denying us that piece, for now, is probably ADM’s way of “punishing” Chicago for making them otherwise “lose face” in that they demanded financial concessions and wound up getting nothing.

NOTHING, THAT IS, except for the knowledge that they will be located in THE major city of the Midwestern U.S. and have access to the wonders that are Chicago.

So even though there are people who are speculating politically that the winners were Gov. Pat Quinn (who released a statement Wednesday talking of the “continued partnership as this dynamic company invests and grows in Illinois”) and his allies.

I’d argue the real winner is ADM itself for staying. And the people, because we rejected the notions of the ideologues who think we have to give and give and give. That would have been the real loss!

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We lost Office Depot. Some fear ADM is next. Where is Illinois headed?

Officials with Office Depot, Inc. – the company that resulted when the Office Depot and Office Max chains of office supply retail stores merged into one entity – dumped on Illinois on Tuesday.

Not that it was unexpected. In fact, anybody with sense could predict that the move was going to happen. Although the ideologues of our society are going to be more than willing to concoct their own reasons to appease themselves.

FOR THE RECORD, Office Depot, Inc., let it be known that their corporate headquarters will be in Boca Raton, Fla. –the city where Office Depot had been.

Office Max had its corporate offices in suburban Naperville, and those offices will be abandoned. So Illinois lost a business to Florida. Some 1,600 jobs in Illinois are suspected will be lost.

Admittedly, the company had expressed a willingness to be based in the Chicago suburbs IF the Illinois General Assembly were to grant them certain EDGE tax credits. But in the wake of being obsessed with approving a measure to resolve pension funding programs, the Illinois House ignored the issue.

So with no tax breaks, the new Office Depot chain will be a Florida-based business.

THE HONEST TRUTH is that this merger basically sees Office Depot take over Office Max. So it shouldn’t be a surprise that their corporate culture will be the predominant one in the newly-enlarged company.

It would have been a bigger jolt if they had made the move to DuPage County. I’m not sure that such tax credits would have been appropriate. If Office Depot, Inc., can’t fully appreciate the benefits of being a part of metro Chicago, I’d argue it’s their loss.

There ought to be limits as to how far our political people go to do the equivalent of bribing businesses to come be amongst us.

Of course, this issue is going to crop up again, since the Decatur-based Archer Daniels Midland company also wants the same type of tax credits. They say they want to be in a bigger city than their current corporate home, and would like to keep an Illinois tie by moving to Chicago.

BUT THEY’RE DEMANDING the same EDGE tax credits, which really don’t amount to much money toward their financial bottom line.

It really comes down to a business entity thinking they have the right to demand things of government, just because they can. “Corporate welfare” is the label some people like to put on these kinds of deals, although there are times I wonder if “corporate blackmail” is more accurate.

Yes, there are political people who are claiming the loss of Office Depot, Inc. – which we never really had in the first place – is evidence that we’re too inept to hang on to ADM. They may well wind up in St. Louis or Minneapolis – although I’d suspect the Dallas-Ft. Worth area is more likely because they have an airport and flight connections that can compete with what’s available at O’Hare International and Midway airports.

I do realize that not gaining a corporate headquarters is a blow to the state. It would have helped burnish our rep if we could have stolen it, in a sense, from Florida. But it’s not exactly the end of the world.

PERHAPS AS EVIDENCED by the statement Gov. Pat Quinn was able to issue Tuesday about the boost Illinois received from the Standard & Poor’s credit rating agency. The quality of the state’s bonds rose from “negative” to “developing.”

Having our state Legislature get off its collective duff and act on pension funding was a significant step in the direction of significant improvement of our state’s economy.

“The change reflects the consensus reached on pension reform, which we believe could contribute to a sustainable path to fiscal stability,” Standard & Poor’s credit analyst Robin Prunty said of Illinois.

More sustainable than any concoction of EDGE tax credits could ever achieve for Illinois.

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Did Pat Quinn just give St. Louis a jolt in their desires to attract ADM?

Perhaps Pat Quinn thinks his gubernatorial re-election bid will benefit with solid voter turnout from Madison and St. Clair counties – the parts of Illinois that also are part of the St. Louis metropolitan area.

QUINN: A dangerous political mix

That’s about the only line of logic I can think of that would make me comprehend why the governor would create a link between the issue of trying to keep Archer Daniels Midland Co. in Illinois AND trying to fix the funding flaws in pension programs overseen by state government.

FOR THE RECORD, ADM officials have said they want to move their world headquarters from Decatur to a large Midwestern city. They have hinted Chicago is their preference, but St. Louis and Minneapolis also have been mentioned in the mix.

To the goal of ensuring that Chicago comes out on top, the Illinois General Assembly is contemplating whether they should approve something resembling tax breaks for ADM IF they stay in an Illinois city. Such tax credits could come up for consideration during the veto session that begins later this month.

But Quinn is telling the Associated Press that he’ll use his veto power to kill off any such tax breaks – UNLESS the state Legislature also manages to approve an adequate plan for fixing pension funding mechanisms.

Whether or not pension funding will be addressed is questionable – some legislators are confident it can be addressed during the same veto session, while others say the sides are too far apart and that nothing will happen until next year AT THE SOONEST!!!

HOW WOULD IT play if Quinn wound up killing off a bid to keep one of rural Illinois’ major companies within the state, while also giving Chicago’s corporate presence another major player?

CULLERTON: A political balance?

Would it seem like Quinn is playing politics in ways that would encourage ADM to give one of those other cities more serious consideration?

The presence of O’Hare International Airport may be a major advantage, but if it meant avoiding the political games, I suspect ADM officials would learn to live with Lambert Airport in St. Louis.

Which might somehow mean that a few of those ADM executives who leave Decatur for the new world headquarters would wind up living in the St. Louis Metro East area. Or maybe not. Maybe they’ll all decide to live on the Missouri side of the Mississippi River? Or maybe Quinn fantasizes that they'll use high-speed rail to commute from Chicago TO St. Louis?

I COULD EASILY see this issue being spun into a negative that Quinn was willing to let a rural-based company leave the state, AND into a negative by Chicago interests that he thwarted local efforts to try to attract that company.

Could political gamesmanship make Lambert look better?

The last time I checked, Madison and St. Clair counties had solid Democratic Party organizations, but not strong enough to overcome opposition everywhere else in Illinois.

Which is why state Senate President John Cullerton, D-Chicago, is trying to make an appeal to both regions; what with his talk that the estimated $20 million worth of tax breaks being sought by ADM to move to Chicago should be balanced off with something to compensate Decatur for any jobs it loses due to the move.

I’m not sure I see what Quinn gains by linking the two issues – particularly since the General Assembly has made it clear on so many occasions that they’re not willing to do the political heavy-lifting required to resolve the pension problems.

HOW MANY “DEADLINES,” how many drop-dead dates, have come and gone with nothing being done on the issue? There’s plenty of blame to go around the General Assembly on this issue.

Quinn’s latest tactic comes across as the governor himself trying to grab a share of the blame, rather than letting the Legislature take the hits!

Which further convinces me that if Quinn prevails in next year’s election cycle, it’s going to be more due to the incompetence of his potential opponents than it will be anything positive the governor does himself.

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Can we keep a major business here, or will Ill. lose to Mo. or Minn.?

Call it one of the unique characteristics of Decatur, Ill. – the smell.

Literally, there’s an aroma in the air that comes from the plants that process soybeans at the major companies based in that central Illinois municipality.

ONE OF THOSE companies is now throwing out big hints that it plans to leave Decatur, and it seems that Illinois is now going to be in a fight to try to keep such a major global company that happens to be based within its boundaries.

I’m referring to Archer Daniels Midland, Co., which came out with a statement letting it be known that they plan to move their “world” headquarters to a new city. It seems that the people in charge of that company think they need to be in a more easily accessible location.

Instead of one where you take the Interstate to Springfield, then make a left and drive about a half-hour until you get to the “Welcome to Decatur” sign that lets you know the city is the one-time home of the team now known as the Chicago Bears.

“To continue to succeed, we need a global center in a location that allows us to travel and work efficiently,” the company said, in a prepared statement. “We also need an environment where we can attract and retain employees with diverse skills.”

CRAIN’S CHICAGO BUSINESS reported Monday that ADM isn’t necessarily a loss of a business from Illinois. Because it seems that one of the places under consideration for the new world headquarters is Chicago.

What if A.E. Staley joined the Bears in Chicago?

Which for all the rants and rages we get from rural Illinois people about how nobody in their right mind wants anything to do with the urban clutter of Chicago (let's not forget that it was a Decatur-area state legislator who came up with a nonsense bill to "kick" Chicago out of Illinois) must be a real blow! Although it also can be perceived as, “Yea for us!”

 

If we can keep it. Because while Chicago has a major international airport, several railroad lines and interstate highways that run in all directions, it might not be enough.

 

Because St. Louis and Minneapolis also are under consideration, according to Crain’s.

THEY MIGHT NOT have O’Hare International, but Lambert or Minneapolis-St. Paul airports would probably do the company just as well.

We’re going to get a test of how credible a job our state can do in terms of keeping a major corporate interest. Certainly more of a test of how it appeals to business interests than that attempt by Gov. Pat Quinn a couple of weeks ago to boast that Mike’s Hard Lemonade brought its corporate headquarters to Chicago.

This has a potential to create many jobs. Because it’s not just corporate offices and executives who will move, the company says it plans to develop a technology center in conjunction with its new offices.

It could be a significant coup for Chicago if this company winds up here. It would be a blow for the city and for Illinois if we wind up losing Archer Daniels Midland to a surrounding state in the Midwest.

I SUPPOSE WE could claim that if it went to St. Louis, it wouldn’t be much of a loss – since part of the St. Louis metro area does spill over into Illinois. So we might be able to claim there’s a chance that Illinoisans could get some of those jobs.

Although why should we hope for a partial benefit, when we could claim the whole thing if our elected officials are capable of drawing Archer Daniels Midland to the Second City.

How is this destined to play out? Will it be like when the original Decatur Staleys football team ditched the “Pride of the Prairie” to come to Chicago and become the Bears?

Or will it be like when Chicago’s original National Football League team, the Cardinals, ditched the Sout’ Side for St. Louis?

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