Walgreens Moving Over 1,000 Workers From Deerfield To Chicago

DEERFIELD, IL — Walgreens plans to have about 1,800 workers at a planned new downtown Chicago office it hopes to open next fall, the company announced Friday. About 1,300 current employees will relocate from Deerfield. The company said it expects about 3,200 employees to remain working at the present headquarters of its parent company, Walgreens Boots Alliance.

The Old Main Post Office was built in 1922 by the architectural firm of Graham, Anderson, Probst & White, who were also responsible for many other famous Chciago structures like the Civic Opera House, Merchandise Mart, Field Museum and Wrigley Building. The post office has been vacant since the Postal Service left in 1997 and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2001.

The building was sold at auction in 2009, but it was never successfully redeveloped. In 2016, New York-based real estate investors purchased the site. With 2.8 million available square feet, it was included as a possible location for Amazon's second headquarters in Chicago's proposal.

Last year, the post office's owners, the company 601W received a $500 million loan to finance the site's renovation, Crain's Chicago Business reported. The On Thursday, the Chicago Tribune broke the news of the Walgreens lease.

Walgreens said it currently employs nearly 4,500 people in Chicago, where it operates 120 drugstores. The firm was founded on Chicago's South Side in 1901 and relocated to Deerfield in 1975. The new space is intended to serve as expanded offices for some digital and IT operations Walgreens staff, as well as some global IT personnel for its parent company.

“Investing in our infrastructure and building our digital and technical capabilities are essential elements of our business transformation strategy, as we work to improve access for our customers and enhance the customer experience," said Walgreens President Alex Gourlay in a release." The space in the iconic Old Post Office building allows us to attract and retain the best talent from all of Chicagoland.”

Walgreens is the latest large corporation to shift staff from the suburbs and back into the city. Kraft Heinz announced plans to move its headquarters to downtown Chicago from Northfield in 2015. Motorola moved its headquarters into Chicago from Schaumburg in 2016, and earlier this month McDonald's returned to Chicago and a newly-constructed 490,000-square-foot base in the West Loop.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel said a presence for Walgreens in one of the city's most iconic locations is appropriate given the company's Chicago roots.

“This is a smart decision by an innovative company, it will contribute to our city's thriving tech sector," Emanuel said. "We are looking forward to cutting the ribbon and welcoming 1,800 members of the Walgreens team to Chicago.”

Earlier: Walgreens Moving Some Tech Jobs From Deerfield To Chicago