MCD’S NEW HQ TO HAVE ‘ CONCEPT’ RESTAURANT
Rahm welcomes ‘ home’ corporation at W. Loop ceremony
McDonald’s new corporate headquarters on a West Loop site that once housed Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Studios will be anchored by a ground- floor restaurant, CEO Steve Easterbrook disclosed Tuesday.
At a ceremonial “groundbreaking” for a project that’s been under way for months, Mayor Rahm Emanuel welcomed McDonald’s Corp. back “home” to the city where it was headquartered from 1955 to 1971 beforemoving to Oak Brook.
“After 45 years, you’re like a family member now. We’re never gonna let you go again,” Emanuel said.
Easterbrook initially teased a “McDonald’s presence” on the ground floor of the building at Randolph and Carpenter that will house a 2,000- strong McDonald’s workforce as well as Hamburger University and the company’s test kitchens.
But under questioning after the groundbreaking, Easterbrook acknowledged that it would be a restaurant of some kind, perhaps a new concept for McDonald’s.
“That’s what we are. We’re a restaurant business. So, it’ll be a restaurant concept of some sort,” Easterbrook said.
“As we’ve got more details to share, we’ll share them. But at the moment, I just wanted to acknowledge that we will have a McDonald’s presence of a kind on the groundfloor retail space. And we’re looking forward to that also contributing to the local going- out scene. It’s a great place to come out and eat and drink around this area.”
The McDonald’s CEO was more expansive about his reasons for returning to Chicago without an incentive or taxpayer subsidy of any kind.
It’s about being “closer to our customers” and about transforming McDonald’s into a “modern, progressive” company with a workforce filled with millennials who crave the city’s nightlife and cultural scene.