Allscripts HQ heading for Chicago from Libertyville

August 17, 2004

BY NEIL VERSEL




Software developer and drug distribution firm Allscripts Healthcare Solutions will move its corporate headquarters from Libertyville to the Merchandise Mart before the end of the year.

Chairman and CEO Glen E. Tullman said Allscripts will lease approximately 13,000 square feet of office space in the Mart, and relocate about 70 corporate, finance, business-development and education-related jobs from the northern fringes of the metropolitan area to the heart of the city during the fourth quarter. At least 50 sales, technical, manufacturing and logistics workers will remain in Libertyville, as will the company's drug repackaging and distribution warehouse.

The move largely is aimed at creating a showcase for out-of-town visitors, Tullman said. "When we bring clients to Chicago, they want to see Chicago. They want to see the sights," he said. "We expect to bring thousands of clients into Chicago." No inducements were offered by the city of Chicago to bring the company to the city.

Allscripts makes wireless-application software for physicians, to automate common activities using handheld or workstation computers to prescribe medication, dictate orders and make clinical notes on patients.

Tullman's optimistic prediction is just the latest in a series of positive developments for the company and for health care information technology as a whole.

In April, President Bush named a first-ever national coordinator of health IT to lead his stated goal of computerizing medical records for most Americans within 10 years. Such political opponents as Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich have joined together in support of legislation to encourage private-sector adoption of clinical IT.

Private industry already has taken some proactive steps, working to develop standards for electronic medical records and for data sets to assure continuity of care when patients change doctors or move between care settings.

Allscripts, a survivor of the dot-com bust and massive consolidation in the health IT sector, turned profitable last year and has been in the black for three consecutive quarters. Cash flow has been positive for six straight quarters.

After posting a loss of $5 million on $86 million in revenue last year, Allscripts swung to a profit in the second quarter. The company earned $700,000, or 2 cents a share, on $26 million in revenue, up 30 percent.



..blah, blah, blah, it's a long article. You can read the rest at the Chicago Sun-Times. It's not a huge company, but it's good to see suburban companies coming to the city. Perhaps a trend as the downtown grows more liveable/fun, etc and as more "yuppies" with high paying jobs live in the city?

Perhaps a trend as the downtown grows more liveable/fun, etc and as more "yuppies" with high paying jobs live in the city?
That is the goal of the city; to make Chicago more liveable so people will want to be here and thus the hope is that the jobs and businesses will follow. I saw a great article about this not too long ago. I'll see if I can find it and post it. Instead of Chicago using it money to lure businesses through incentives, the hope is that people and companies will find Chicago desirable enough, not just from business sense but also from a good aesthetics and a positive vibe, so they locate here without subsidies.

quote from the article posted:
The move largely is aimed at creating a showcase for out-of-town visitors, Tullman said. "When we bring clients to Chicago, they want to see Chicago. They want to see the sights," he said. "We expect to bring thousands of clients into Chicago." No inducements were offered by the city of Chicago to bring the company to the city.

Here is one article. This isn't the one I referenced but it is similar in tone.

Chicago Faces the Future
by Christopher Hinton
There are several key ingredients an urban center needs to sustain prosperity, according to professor David F. Schulz of Northwestern University. Many city planners focus on the ingredients for economic development (such as infrastructure and new businesses). But Schulz believes such a focus misses the founding ingredient that makes all other development possible: human talent.

When Mayor Richard M. Daley took office in 1989, his primary goal was to remake Chicago into a city which would attract that human talent. He set out to redesign the ambiance of the city from a gloomy and economically depressed urban center to one of gardens, lights, and excitement. The result has been a more-than-decade-long experiment in what some observers have called the "architecture of reassurance."

First it was flower gardens planted in the median strips of major downtown streets. New wrought-iron streetlights were built, and from these iron baskets were hung overflowing with even more flowers. Major landscaping occurred along Michigan Lake, the Chicago riverbanks downtown and in the surrounding neighborhoods, and on the vast campus of Chicago's Field Museum. And since 1989, almost 300,000 new trees have been planted throughout the city.

All together, $5.2 billion has been spent improving Chicago's walkways, streets, parks, and communities.

Even in my working-class neighborhood, where there has been little around the transit stations besides concrete and blacktop for years, the city has been landscaping and planting trees. The effect has been remarkable. It's a change from waste and neglect to revitalization, pride and hope.

On the side of the Harold Washington Memorial Library (built downtown in 1995 in honor of the incredibly popular mayor who served just prior to Daley, and who died in office), one sees the words "Urbs in Horto" chiseled beneath the gazing figure of Athena. It is Latin for "City in a Garden," and it is the new motto of Chicago. By making the city a modern Garden of Eden, Daley hopes to see Chicago become more attractive and livable. A livable city will not only attract talent, but those businesses that hire and serve that talent, and the money to revitalize an eroding inner-city infrastructure.

So far, that talent has been responding the way City Hall has hoped. Since Daley's beautification plan has gone into effect, 120,000 people have moved downtown into lofts renovated by private developers. Businesses have followed, with the city's biggest trophy arriving last year: from Seattle, Boeing moved its corporate headquarters into downtown Chicago last summer. In addition, suburbanites coming into the city for shopping have doubled.

"Everybody comes back raving about it [Chicago]," said Paul Levy, executive director of Central Philadelphia Development District, in a 1999 interview with Russ Salzman of the Houston Chronicle. "Chicago is probably doing a better job than most cities in landscaping--the trees and the planters and the flowers. Frankly, there is a level of envy to what Chicago has done."

There is more to the gardens besides beautification and attracting new life. One of the more inventive programs Daley is pushing these days are rooftop gardens. In the spring of 2001, City Hall finished constructing a rooftop garden as part of a four-city federal project to test how such gardens affect urban temperatures and humidity. To coincide with its grand opening, City Hall published a booklet titled Chicago's Green Rooftops--A Guide to Rooftop Gardening, and soon began announcing the positive effect a rooftop garden has had for City Hall.

Through ongoing studies during the 2001 summer, City Hall rooftop temperatures were consistently 12 degrees less than those buildings with blacktop roofs. Surface temperatures in planted areas were as low as 86 degrees, where for a blacktop it was 168 degrees. But there is more to a rooftop garden than just bringing down the local temperature.

"Our studies estimate that City Hall will save $4,000-$5,000 per year in heating and cooling costs due to the cooling and insulating effects of the rooftop garden," says Environment Commissioner William Abolt.

Daley is hoping that such revelations will entice city building managers to construct their own gardens. Chicago has been suffering not only under intense heat during the summer months from all the concrete and blacktops, but also from the increased use of air-conditioners and the attendant energy consumption. In addition to conserving energy, Daley is also pushing city buildings to create their own by installing solar panels. More gardens and more alternative fuel sources, says Daley, mean cleaner air for Chicago.

Daley is pushing conservation even further to clean Chicago's air and sustain an admirable quality of life. Daley's energy plan is also providing grants to low-income residents to replace old furnaces (particularly coal and oil fired ones), building more co-generation plants which use the wasted heat of industries to provide additional power to residences, and buying electric transportation for city workers. ComEd, Chicago's energy supplier, has also agreed to make 20% of the energy they sell to Chicago green by 2005.

Chicago's proactive effort for sustainability through landscaping and conservation has many admirers across the country. There are of course some critics who worry that if the economy goes sour such efforts will appear superfluous, but Chicago has always had a diverse economy which minimizes such downturns.

In the meantime, Daley's architecture of reassurance has had a positive affect on the city's self-esteem. People are proud of how the city looks, and they are more willing to buy property and stay for the long term. People who hear of Chicago are first attracted by its reputation of being a cosmopolitan and well connected city, but they stay here because they city offers them a quality of life many other cities are unable to provide: theater, festivals, clubs, cultural diversity, fine arts, music, and the country's second largest international airport.

Under Daley's plan, success will ultimately be measured by most outside observers in terms of economics. But Chicagoans will measure the success by their quality of life, and right now we are a feeling a resounding, positive affirmation.

For more information on Chicago's environmental efforts, please go to the Chicago Department of Environment website.

This is what I like to hear. The incentives we had to offer Boeing to win over Denver (even though they were just a pawn in the bidding-war) were rediculous. Granted, Allscripts is no Boeing, but, it's nice to see companies moving here on their own volition; without us wasting TIF credits on them :)

I saw this article yesterday and agree that it's a great development, and certainly not the first recent suburb to city relocation in Chicago that didn't include city incentives. There's a software business in the Merchandise Mart called Navteq that moved its 300 employees from Rosemont, IL to the Loop in 2001. Several major suburban companies also have opened offices in the Loop in recent years,without special incentives, specifically to attract young talent that wants to live in the city but not commute to the burbs. Motorola put a research and development shop of 75 people downtown in 2003 after abandoning the Loop 30 years ago. CDW, the computer retailer,also opened a Loop office, after operating out of the burbs for its entire existence.

The city and state haven't stopped throwing money at companies, though. Just this morning, the Tribune reported that the state is giving $500,000 to a subsidiary of Stanley Kaplan to put its headquarters and 300 jobs in the West Loop. That works out to a subsidy of about $1600 per job, which isn't bad and will certainly be recouped in sales and income taxes fairly quickly. Per the article, the competition for the jobs was Atlanta, which didn't open its wallet.

The precedent has already been set many times over for handouts, so it will take a lot for them to end completely. Just this year, USG threatened to move to the burbs and got handed almost $10 million by the city to keep 675 headquarters jobs in the Loop. This sucks, but you really have to keep a critical mass of important companies in the Loop. The decorative touches mentioned in the article above are great, but they've got trees in the burbs too. The city has to offer things you can't get in the burbs, and for the time being, we still have to spend to maintain some of those things.

Thanks for the article Qwerty--very interesting.

Very true, Kevin J, and it's to Chicago's fortune that they can throw such huge sums of money to get companies to move to the city. I also agree that rooftop gardens aren't going to get people into the city. What Chicago needs to do is maintain its strongest asset and what sets it apart from places like Atlanta, LA, Houston, etc--its character and its urban-ness! Places like the Brown Line stop and Belmont, etc cannot be seen anywhere else in America except maybe NYC. That is why I feel so strongly that the city put an end to suburban-style development (which it is finally starting to do).

BTW, any word on whether that BP spinoff is coming to Houston or Chicago? We're talking a possible Fortune 500 here..

I also agree that rooftop gardens aren't going to get people into the city.
That one thing alone, roof top gardens, won't but the cumulative effect of all the quality of life issues will.

Of course companies are still being subsidized to locate or stay located in Chicago but the point I was trying to make along with the article is that people should want to be here too not just from a financial stand point but more from a quality of life standpoint.

Thanks for the article Qwerty--very interesting.

BTW, any word on whether that BP spinoff is coming to Houston or Chicago? We're talking a possible Fortune 500 here..

The same article announcing the Stanley Kaplan deal mentioned the BP spinoff competition, but gave no further update on the status.

The same article announcing the Stanley Kaplan deal mentioned the BP spinoff competition, but gave no further update on the status.

You wouldn't happen to have a post of that article, would you? I can't find it on the tribune website. Kevin, you seem to understand the financial world well. In all honestly, do you think Chicago will get BP or will they mosey on down to sprawl-land (you know where I'm talking about)?


Of course companies are still being subsidized to locate or stay located in Chicago but the point I was trying to make along with the article is that people should want to be here too not just from a financial stand point but more from a quality of life standpoint.

True as well. But if you think about it, Chicago's not really "bribing" companies to come to the city. In a sense, the federal and state governments continue to disproportionately fund suburbia with their current spending policies and naturally give urban centers like Chicago a disadvantage. I like to think of Chicago's "bribes" as their way to balance the playing field.

You wouldn't happen to have a post of that article, would you? I can't find it on the tribune website. Kevin, you seem to understand the financial world well. In all honestly, do you think Chicago will get BP or will they mosey on down to sprawl-land (you know where I'm talking about)?


The "article" I mentioned was really today's Business Beat column by Jim Kirk. The business section probably lists the various columnists with a link to their most recent column.

Regarding the BP spinoff: By announcing 2 finalists, the company obviously intended to start a bidding war. They have to know that both Chicago and Houston have coughed up big bucks recently to land or retain major headquarters. So to the extent that money plays a part in this, I'm sure they're dead serious about considering putting the company here.

Other than that, it just depends on the preferences of the guy or handful of guys who make the decision. Lots of people treat the fact that Houston is the center of the petrochemical industry in the US as a completely dispositive factor. But only this company knows how important that is for their ability to do business efficiently. And not coincidentally: Amoco, the Chicago oil company BP bought out in 1998, did just fine as an oil company for 80 years, despite being nowhere near the center of the oil industry in the US. Granted the original reason Amoco was headquartered here is unusual (the court-ordered break up of the Standard Oil monopoly), but the fact remains that if being so far from the oil patch was such a big deal, Amoco wouldn't have survived as long as it did.

C'mon Kevin J

Who do you put your money on? Chicago/Houston?

No personal opinions allowed..

Sorry, Urban, my crystal ball is clouded over. Too many unknowns. I never thought Boeing would actually move here, but Chicago proved that money talks with these relocation skirmishes. That's why I say it's pretty much about the Benjamins in this case too.

Chicago lands BP Amoco subsidiary HQ

By Gary Washburn
Tribune staff reporter
Published October 29, 2004, 12:56 PM CDT

BP Amoco has chosen downtown Chicago for the global headquarters of a new chemicals subsidiary, officials of the oil giant and Mayor Richard Daley announced today.

The firm's olefins and derivatives unit will locate 125 jobs in the Aon Center office tower at 200 E. Randolph St., officials said. Another 200 positions already at a BP Amoco facility in west suburban DuPage County will remain there.

Chicago beat Houston, the other finalist city for the subsidiary's headquarters. It reportedly was the most heated competition for a new corporate headquarters that the city participated in since it won Boeing Co. in 2001.

This time, though, no incentives were necessary for the city to win the BP Amoco business, officials said today. While wooing Boeing, the city promised $3 million in grants and $19 million in property tax abatements, while the state offered up to $41 million in assistance.

Besides Chicago's business climate, quality of life and ready access to domestic and international air transport, Daley said, "There's no other city in the world where you could have an office right across the street from a place as magnificent as Millennium Park."

When it is established as a stand-alone unit next year, the subsidiary will be one of the five largest petrochemicals companies in the world, with assets of more than $8 billion, according to today's announcement by Daley and Ralph Alexander, chief executive of BP Amoco's Petrochemicals Division.

The olefins and derivatives business manufactures chemicals used in such plastic goods as food and drink containers and wrappings, medical supplies,

"There's no other city in the world where you could have an office right across the street from a place as magnificent as Millennium Park."

hmmmm...

great news indeed though indeed.

So BP Amoco (a part of it at least) is moving back to the Standard Oil/Amoco/Aon Building?

I guess they missed the place.

^Screw it.

It's a brand new company, with a new name. A whole different industry, to be honest. Nothing from BP/Amoco will have anything to do with it. I am glad, to be honest. I don't think (although I am FAR from being an expert on this) Chicago has a major petrochemicals company. This HQ will help contribute to the diversity of the city's economy

^Screw it? I was merely pointing out how I find it interesting that of all the buildings in downtown, a company associated with the late Amoco Company choose 200 E. Randolf.

BP still has a lease at 200 E. Randolph for a large amount of space that runs until around 2010. They were able to unload about 500,000 sq. ft to Aon through a sublease, but BP's lease is for more space (I don't know how much) than that. They chose to locate this new company in this building because they're still paying for space there.

Perhaps this trend of companies moving to downtown Chicago is growing (or perhaps I'm just living a fantasy). Either way, here comes another one. Interestingly, it is a relatively small company but will bring more jobs to Chicago than the BP subsidiary will:



Tech adviser finds business better downtown

November 8, 2004

BY MICHAEL KRAUSS Advertisement






As a suburban teen, Michael Parks got a speeding ticket, and appeared in traffic court at 325 N. La Salle.

Now the 42-year-old founder and CEO of the fast-growing tech consultancy Revere Group is going back to court. But things have changed in the meantime.

Parks is moving his firm's headquarters and its 140 employees from Deerfield into the red brick Reid-Murdoch Center, which once housed Chicago's traffic court where Parks appeared as a teen. He'll be on the third floor holding court for a growing list of consulting clients that include CCC Information Services, DeVry Inc., A. J. Gallagher, Hewitt Associates and Nicor.

The firm will initially lease 14,000 square feet, and the move is expected to be complete by mid February.

Parks says the reason for the move is to better serve clients and employees.

"We did an on-line survey of our consulting professionals, and over 80 percent preferred being downtown," said Parks.

All of Revere's 140 local employees will relocate to the Chicago office. The company employs over 300 nationally, and has an office in Bangalore, India.

"We always believed we should be downtown for the clients, but the survey was a surprise," added Parks. "We just assumed the reason people came to work for the Revere Group was our location in the northern suburbs."

Parks credits Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce CEO Jerry Roper with instigating the move.

"Jerry was a strong advocate for getting us downtown," says Parks. "He opened my eyes to the business benefits of being located downtown."

Parks planned to move three years ago but was unable to sublease his existing Deerfield office space.

The Revere Group obtained no financial incentives from either the city or the state to accommodate the move. Parks said he received active support from World Business Chicago in helping identify the new office space.

Paul O'Connor, executive director of World Business Chicago, sees this move as part of a broader trend. He says employers of knowledge workers -- consultants, researchers, designers, analysts, and other professionals -- increasingly prefer an urban location.

"The talent is downtown. It really is a magnet," said O'Connor, who pointed to the relocation of the research firm Synovate from Arlington Heights and Motorola's opening of a downtown innovation and design center as examples.

"These types of workers prefer to live in the city," said O'Connor. "They want to be able to attend their daughter's soccer games."

Parks agreed adding, "One of the main reasons for the move is to recruit and retain the most talented consulting professionals in the industry."

Revere is the latest in a freshet of companies locating their headquarters downtown. The biggest new HQ will be BP Olefins & Derivatives, the $13 billion plastic-making unit of BP Amoco, which is moving 125 jobs into the Aon Center.

Oh, now that's a nice story to read. Even if companies only decide to move certain departments and functional areas to the Loop, there is a huge gain for the city. Having a big stud like Boeing move in is awesome, but so is having 20 or 30 smaller companies relocate high paying, knowledge workers into an already vibrant central area.

Great news. Nobody likes corporate welfare, but Chicago needed to dole it out to maintain a critical mass of business activity in the Loop. It's clear now that the worm has turned and these efforts are paying off.

But 14,000 square feet for 140 employees? That's a 10 x 10 square for each person, not including storage, hallways, conference rooms, etc. And they're moving into an old Class B or C building, to boot. Hopefully, they're a healthy company.