Walgreens, Peapod and Mars Food grow in Chicago

This month, Mayor Emanuel announced that Walgreens, Peapod and Mars Food will grow their businesses in Chicago. All three companies noted access to talent and markets, and growth opportunities as key reasons for their expansions in the city.

Walgreens announced the company will bring approximately 300 technology positions to its current downtown Chicago office in the Sullivan Center to establish a new technology center of excellence. Through a combination of new hires and relocations from its Deerfield headquarters, Walgreens will double its number of employees working at the Sullivan Center located at 36 S. Wabash Ave.

“We are excited to bring more technology jobs to the city of Chicago and establish a technology center of excellence that will focus on delivering state-of-the-art systems to our more than 8,000 drugstores nationwide,” said Alex Gourlay, president of Walgreens. “Chicago is where Walgreens began as a single drugstore in 1901, and expanding our downtown presence will help us retain and attract the best talent to continue developing our digital and technology capabilities.”

Similarly, Peapod, the country’s leading online grocer, announced the company is relocating its headquarters to downtown Chicago at 300 S. Riverside Plaza. The relocation comes as Peapod is experiencing year-over-year growth across all of its markets.

“Since Peapod was founded in Chicago in 1989 as the country’s first online grocer, we have always considered this city our home,” said Walt Lentz, acting President of Peapod. “Moving our headquarters downtown will allow us to become a bigger part of the Chicago business community and invest in the city’s diverse pool of talent while also growing our business throughout the country.”

In addition, Mars Food North America opened its new headquarters in Chicago (relocating from Los Angeles), making it the fourth Mars office on Goose Island. Building on the 125-year history Mars has with Chicago, the Mars Food office brings 75 jobs to the city and signifies a significant investment in this growing business unit within Mars, Incorporated.

“Moving the Mars Food North America headquarters to Chicago enables our long-term growth objectives by bringing us closer to our factories, our customers and other parts of our business,” said Jarek Swigulski, Regional President of Mars Food North America. “We are excited to join the long-standing relationship and community involvement that Mars has already established in Chicago.”

Similar to Walgreens, Peapod and Mars Food, 118 companies relocated or expanded in Chicago in Q2 and Q3 of 2017, listed in this quarter’s Chicago Growing:

Refers to data (where disclosed) for new and expanding companies with a physical address in the 14-county Chicago region that meet Site Selection Magazine Conway Project Database criteria, and/or is a headquarters facility, and/or was assisted by World Business Chicago (WBC). WBC captures project information from media outlets, press releases, company websites, subscription services and WBC internal reporting; the quality of each record depends on the availability of data and resources to input and confirm information. Data is finalized in the first quarter of the following year to allow for the time lag in project reporting; year-to-date numbers are subject to revision
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