For years, the corporate headquarters of McDonald's has been located in suburban Oak Brook, but recently the global fast food chain announced its intentions to move its offices back to Chicago. Last night, developer Sterling Bay revealed that McDonald's will occupy a new building in the West Loop, built on the site of Harpo Studios, where The Oprah Winfrey Show was once taped. The company is expected to move into the building in 2018.
The company will join a flood of high-profile corporations that have moved parts of their operation to buildings in the West Loop, including Google and Glassdoor. According to the Tribune, McDonald's will occupy about 80 percent of the proposed 608,000-square-foot building. The site will need to be rezoned to accommodate the nine-story structure, which will house nearly 2,000 employees.
Unfortunately, the fabled McDonald's test kitchens in the company's Oak Brook headquarters won't be making the move to the new Chicago digs. The Tribune reports that the Fulton Market building will not contain an internal McDonald's restaurant (though it doesn't rule out the possibility of a public-facing restaurant as one of the building's retail tenants).
Area residents showed up to last night's meeting with the developer to express concerns about the effect this development will have on parking in an already crowded Fulton Market area. The proposed building is slated to include 300 parking spots, which are mostly underground, and several hundred more nearby. By moving into an urban area, McDonald's seems to be banking on the assumption that most of its nearly 2,000 employees will use public transportation to get to the office.
The McDonald's move to one of Chicago's hottest dining districts means employees will probably be eating at restaurants like Little Goat and the Publican. Maybe the Big Mac will learn a thing or two from the hallowed Au Cheval burger? Probably not... but we can dream.
Take a look at some additional renderings of McDonald's new headquarters below.
Courtesy Sterling Bay
Courtesy Sterling Bay