With the announcement of a new corporate headquarters due any day, Boeing Co. has narrowed its choice in Chicago to a downtown building just west of the river that once housed Morton International Co.
A similar cutdown in the other cities under consideration has left the company mulling a former data-processing center near the Dallas-Ft. Worth International Airport and a downtown Denver skyscraper known as the “cash register” building for its distinctive profile, real estate sources said Tuesday.
At the same time Boeing is negotiating multimillion-dollar, long-term leases in the three cities, state and local officials are dangling incentive packages to lure the high-profile relocation from Seattle. Illinois has offered the richest deal, followed by Dallas-Ft. Worth and then Denver.
As one of the nation’s top companies, the jetmaker would be a prestigious addition, though its headquarters operation would add just 500 jobs. A company spokesman would not confirm or deny the site selection plans.
Boeing, which wrapped up a tour of each city with a visit to Denver last week, had been considering two downtown and two suburban buildings in each potential location.
Chicago officials were upbeat about the prospects for the former Morton building.
“It would be spectacular for it to be downtown,” said Paul O’Connor, executive director of World Business Chicago, when informed that Boeing was negotiating a lease for space in the 100 N. Riverside Plaza office building. “It would be the best.”
One of the selling points of the Morton building is the possibility that a rooftop heliport could be built to whisk executives to O’Hare International Airport and to corporate jets based at DuPage Airport in West Chicago or another regional field.
Marina might be built
Besides that amenity, the John Buck Co. and Lend Lease Real Estate Investments Inc., advisers to the owner of 100 N. Riverside Plaza, are presenting an offer to build a marina along the Chicago River at the base of the building, which was developed in 1990, the sources said. Morton moved out of the site after Rohm and Haas Co. acquired it in 1999.
The 100 N. Riverside building is owned by a client of New York investment firm Lend Lease, which sources say is the Florida state pension fund. Chicago-based John Buck Co. handles leasing for the building.
A spokeswoman for Lend Lease would not comment, and Buck Co. executives did not return calls requesting comment.
Meantime, Boeing is negotiating a lease at the MTech building in Irving, Texas, originally built in the late 1980s as a bank data-processing center, the sources said. The five-story, 407,000-square-foot building is just five minutes from Dallas-Ft. Worth International, in a part of Irving known as Las Colinas.
In Denver, the company has settled on the cash register-shaped Wells Fargo Center, the sources said. Built in 1983, the 52-story building is Denver’s newest and most distinctive skyscraper, located just off the16th Street mall.
Boeing spokesman Laurence McCracken said the company is observing a “quiet period” regarding its headquarters selection. “The next thing you hear from us will be when we announce where we are going,” he said.
The decision to move Boeing’s headquarters is part of a wider restructuring that involves splitting the giant company into three operating units. Boeing’s military aircraft will be based in St. Louis, its commercial aviation will remain in Seattle and its space and communications unit will be near Long Beach, Calif.
Philip Condit, Boeing’s chairman and chief executive, has said the company wants its headquarters in a “culturally diverse city that offers ready access to global markets, provides a strong pro-business environment and allows easy access to major Boeing operations and customers.”
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`Shrewd strategy’
“It’s a very shrewd strategy to go into lease negotiations with three different places,” said Alain LeCoque, senior vice president with Chicago-based tenant representative Equis Corp. “It can give them an edge on the office-space side and on the incentive side, and they are playing this for the incentive game.”
Once Boeing reaches lease deals in each of the three cities, the aircraftmaker is expected to turn its attention to completing agreements over public incentives, real estate sources said.
Gov. George Ryan said he received a telephone call from Boeing officials on Tuesday, but he was unable to take the call. The company appeared poised to make some type of an announcement, Ryan said.
“They tell me that they’ve told the media people in all three cities to be on a standby for a 24-hour notice for an announcement,” Ryan told reporters. “As soon as I find out you’ll be the first to know.”
The sprint for the finish line comes as politicians in the three states complete details of multimillion-dollar incentive packages that they hope could, in the end, tip the scale.
The deal being dangled by Illinois officials remains the most lucrative with more than $22 million in income tax breaks, plus millions more in property tax breaks that could be granted by Cook County.
The Cook County property taxes on a 300,000-square-foot building could total more than $40 million over the 20 years that the state legislature is considering allowing the county to grant tax breaks to corporate headquarters.
Besides those incentives, sources say legislators are working on a bill to increase the maximum weight of a plane that can land at DuPage Airport to accommodate Boeing corporate jets.
Texas isn’t far behind the Illinois proposal.
Texas offering tax abatements
Irving is offering a property tax abatement that could be worth a minimum of $10 million plus millions of dollars more in road and airport improvements.
In addition, legislation allowing Texas school districts to abate millions of dollars more in property taxes has cleared the Texas house and is pending before the Texas state senate.
Denver officials say Boeing has been offered a package of tax breaks from the state and local governments that could total $13 million. In addition, the aerospace company could win an additional $5 million in tax breaks if the company bases its fleet of corporate jets there.
In addition to the tax breaks, all three states are offering up to $5 million in relocation money.
Ken Fritz, Schaumburg village manager, said he was disappointed to hear from a Tribune reporter that Boeing favors a downtown location.
But Fritz said he is encouraged that Chicago still is in the running.
“If we have to lose to someone it might as well be to Chicago,” Fritz said. “Certainly, we want to support Chicago and Illinois.”