Chicago Illinois Real Estate Blog

Barely one week old, MillerCoors LLC is close to picking either downtown Chicago or the Dallas area as its headquarters, with a decision expected within weeks.

MillerCoors, a joint venture of Molson Coors Brewing Co. and SABMiller PLC, has been looking for 100,000 to 150,000 square feet and could employ as many as 400 people at the headquarters, sources familiar with the search say.

MillerCoors, which began operations July 1, expects to be in its new headquarters in less than a year, a factor that has put the search on a tight timetable. Should MillerCoors pick Chicago, the joint venture has already focused on three buildings, sources say:

• 350 N. Orleans St., which along with its sister building, the Merchandise Mart, has emerged as a haven for advertising firms. 350 N. Orleans is also home to the Chicago Sun-Times. A representative of Merchandise Mart Properties Inc., which owns both riverfront structures, declined to comment. Mart Properties is a subsidiary of New York-based Vornado Realty Trust.

• The landmark former Carson Pirie Scott & Co. building, 33 S. State St. Renamed the Sullivan Center after the architect Louis Sullivan, the 15-story structure is owned by Joseph Freed & Associates LLC, which is also the developer of the retail and residential portions of the Block 37 project. Representatives of Freed and HSA Commercial Real Estate, which handles leasing for the building, decline to comment.

• 250 S. Wacker Drive, a nearly 250,000-square-foot office building that has recently undergone a complete renovation, including a new exterior. A representative of CB Richard Ellis Inc., which manages the building, declined to comment. Boston investment firm AEW Capital Management L.P. owns the building.

Which buildings MillerCoors is considering in the Dallas area could not be determined.

In an e-mail message, a spokesman for the joint venture declines to comment on the specifics of the search, except to say, “Our executive leadership is actively engaged in determining a location for the MillerCoors headquarters and a decision will be made soon.”

In its search, MillerCoors is being advised by Dallas-based tenant representative Staubach Co., which also advised the parent company of United Airlines in its well-publicized 2006 hunt for new headquarters. The airline eventually moved from suburban Elk Grove Township to downtown Chicago, passing over San Francisco and Denver.

A spokesman for Staubach’s Chicago office declined to comment.
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Both the former Carson’s building and 250 S. Wacker Drive are in tax increment financing districts. The status of subsidy discussions with the Daley administration or with public officials in Texas could not be determined.

Molson Coors and SABMiller announced in October that they would combined their U.S. operations, and early in the search for a new headquarters apparently ruled out Denver and Milwaukee, where the two companies have strong ties.

Related story: Chicago on HQ short list for Molson Coors/SABMiller JV

MillerCoors CEO Leo Kiely was previously CEO of Molson Coors, which maintained dual headquarters in Denver and Montreal after a merger in 2005. Before joining Adolph Coors Co. in 1993, Mr. Kiely worked for more than a decade at chipmaker Frito-Lay Inc., which is based in Plano, Texas, about 17 miles north of Dallas. In the 1970s, Mr. Kiely, 51, worked for Chicago-based Wilson Sporting Goods Co.
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