Citadel Leaves Chicago Tower as City Faces ‘Job Killer’ Tax

kk6w0fh2au[9ln8v7aaq}6[j_media_dl_1.png Illinois Department of Employmen

Article content

(Bloomberg) — Citadel is shrinking its footprint in Chicago three years after billionaire owner Ken Griffin left for Florida, moving the company’s remaining operations in the city out of the downtown tower that was named for it, according to people familiar with the matter.

Article content

The company, which also shifted its headquarters to Miami in 2022, is relocating what’s left to a 50,000-square-feet space north of the Chicago River, said the people, who asked not to be named discussing private matters. The new space is about 10% of what Griffin’s financial firm occupied in 2020 as the Citadel Center’s main tenant. The 37-story tower is now for sale and no longer carries the name.

Article content

Article content

Article content

The firm, which once employed as many as 1,100 people in Chicago, has about 200 employees left in the city after relocations to Miami and New York, the people said.

Article content

Article content

Griffin’s exit — fueled by his public complaints about high taxes and crime in Chicago — is a cautionary tale for the city, business leaders say. Mayor Brandon Johnson, a progressive Democrat, is pushing for a large tax on corporations based on the number of employees. The City Council opposes the levy, which former mayor Rahm Emanuel, also a Democrat, once called a “job killer.”

Article content

Citadel isn’t the only company to leave the Chicago area in recent years. Boeing Co. and Caterpillar Inc. moved their headquarters elsewhere, and Tyson Foods Inc. shut its local offices. But Griffin’s decision to move most of his operations was by far the most high-profile exit, taking away highly paid jobs and millions in philanthropy.

Article content

“It’s important for the administration to demonstrate to the business community that they’re open for business,” said Oren Richland, managing principal at Dearborn Capital Group, a part owner of the building once called the Citadel Center on 131 South Dearborn Street in the central business district known as the Loop. “You want to bring the Citadels and the Caterpillars back into Chicago.”

Article content

Article content

Griffin donated more than $600 million to organizations in the Windy City. Chicago’s science museum got a $125 million gift from him and renamed itself the Kenneth C. Griffin Museum of Science and Industry. Since moving to Miami, he allocated about $325 million to institutions in Florida. 

Article content

The top end of the Chicago’s real estate market also suffered, with Griffin losing about $30 million selling six of his condos in the affluent Gold Coast neighborhood. The sale of his seventh and last property in the city has yet to close.

Article content

The job market is also feeling the pinch. The number of finance roles in Illinois as a whole is down 2.7% since Griffin left to 397,000 in September, according to data from the state’s Department of Employment Security. That’s a big setback for Chicago, a city that gave birth to the modern futures industry in the late 1800s and is home to CME Group Inc. and Cboe Global Markets Inc., some of the top derivatives exchanges. 

Article content

There were also shock waves in the political world. Lori Lightfoot, who downplayed Griffin’s exit when she ran Chicago, became the first mayor to lose a reelection bid in the third-largest US city since 1983. In the end, the crime that the Citadel owner complained so much about was one of the reasons for her defeat.