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Chicago is facing challenges in advancing an $8.5 billion upgrade to O'Hare International Airport, which is crucial for maintaining its status as a major air hub. The project, which was unveiled in 2018, is behind schedule and projected to be billions over budget. Mayor Brandon Johnson is currently in contentious talks with United Airlines and American Airlines to control costs. The delays could have negative economic consequences for the city, as other airports in New York, Dallas-Fort Worth, and Los Angeles have already made significant upgrades. The main part of O'Hare's revamp, including a new Global Terminal, is currently $2 billion over budget due to increased costs from the pandemic. The city is considering using cheaper materials and making design changes to reduce expenses. The completion of the overall airport revamp has been pushed back to 2032. [Extracted from the article]

(Bloomberg) -- Boeing Co.'s decision to leave Chicago is the latest blow to a U.S. city that already has seen its once-mighty economy battered by Covid-19 and crime. "Chicago is a world-class city and in the last year, 173 corporations relocated or expanded here, and 67 corporations have made that same decision since the start of 2022", Lightfoot said in a statement on Thursday. [Extracted from the article]

The move was announced internally on Thursday and would affect about 900 employees such as managers and technical support staff, United said. (Bloomberg) -- United Airlines Holdings Inc. plans to move the network operations center that coordinates its flights globally to a Chicago suburb next year, slashing headcount at the carrier's world headquarters at Blackstone Inc.'s Willis Tower. Flooding cut off electricity to the Willis Tower last year, forcing United to close its operations center and evacuate flight dispatchers through darkened stairwells of the 110-story building. [Extracted from the article]

(Bloomberg) -- Blackstone Group LP's Willis Tower is temporarily closed to tenants after flooding knocked out power overnight to the iconic Chicago skyscraper. The flooding forced United Airlines Holdings Inc. to shut down the operations center in its headquarters and evacuate flight dispatchers through darkened stairwells of the 110-story building. [Extracted from the article]

This article highlights some Chicago socialites, under 40 years of age from the field of local business, government and arts. They include Ronald T. Senci, 39, executive vice-president. Senci is one of an increasingly rare breed, the company man. Debra Pickett, 30, Chicago Sun-Times columnist. Amy Tu, 36, assistant corporate secretary and counsel. As a top in-house lawyer at Boeing Co.'s world headquarters in Chicago, Tu recently worked on a billion-dollar global bond offering, a syndicated credit facility for selling F-15s to South Korea and the innovative financial details of leasing 100 refueling aircraft to the U.S. Air Force. Swetal Patel, 32, vice-president, Raja Foods LLC, Patel Bros. Katie Watson, 36, Ensemble member, visiting assistant professor Medical humanities and bioethics program at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine.

Three years after the crash, the Prairie Angels offer a bedeviled local tech market hope and money. The Prairie Angels sit expectantly in a downtown Chicago hotel conference room, arranged in half-crescents at round tables. The Prairie Angels and two other groups offer hope to Chicago's devastated technology market. The effort is led by Linda Darragh, director of the technology and venture program at the Women's Business Development Center, a non-profit Chicago-based group that provides support to women entrepreneurs.

Profiles nuclear physicist Leonard Reiffel from Chicago, Illinois. Career achievements; Role of Reiffel in the Apollo program of the National Aeronautics and Space Administrations; Citations of the inventions of Reiffel.

Discusses how the generational shift reshaping the manufacturing industry in Chicago, Illinois, has presented business owners the option of passing their companies on to their younger generation or selling them to willing buyers. Demographic and economic factors influencing business decisions; Account of the decision of Ace Plating Inc. owner Stanley Holewinski to maintain the business within the family.

Presents the ten biggest business stories of 1998 in Chicago, Illinois. Includes British Petroleum Co.'s acquisition of Amoco Corp.; Merger between First Chicago NBD Corp. and Banc One Corp.; Proposed union between Ameritech Corp. and SBC Communications Inc.; Real estate market downturn; Appointment of John W. Rowe as new chief executive officer of Commonwealth Edison Co.

Presents a forecast for Chicago, Illinois's economy in 1999. Percent of local growth; CEOs' concern over effect of the world financial crisis; Slowing down of industrial growth; Decline in retail sales; Uncertainty faced by CEOs with the threat of a sudden market reversal or investor panic; Employment; Oil prices.

Comic relief is absent from entrepreneur Andrew Filipowski's latest misadventure, the collapse of Chicago-based Internet-incubator-turned-software-industry-roll-up-vehicle Divine Inc. Collapse of the company is one of the most spectacular flameouts of the dot.com era, reverberating throughout the private and public-equity markets and scorching the highest levels of Chicago's financial elite as it vaporized $1 billion in investors' money. Filipowski can bring considerable strengths to any new enterprise. Filipowski still has a huge fortune and the charisma to captivate a roomful of prospective investors.

Reports on efforts of Chicago, Illinois-based companies to trade intellectual property. Reasons for change in business strategies of the companies; Steps taken by the companies to generate revenue from their intellectual assets; Efforts made by Boeing Co. for managing its intellectual assets.

Profiles Daniel Bryant, senior vice-president of investment bank Jefferies & Co. in Chicago, Illinois. Responsibility in running the Business and IT Services Group; Work experience at Robertson Stephens Inc.; Plans to run a technology practice.

Focuses on the role of senior accountants from Andersen Consulting in the destruction of documents related to the audit of Enron Corp. in Chicago, Illinois. Rejection of the theory of Arthur Andersen on the case; Denial of Andersen of the charges; Investigation of the case by the Security of Exchange and Commission.

Reports on the increase in the number of politicians in Chicago, Illinois, who have joined Internet ventures. High-profile politicians and their online ventures; Appeal of the Internet to politicians; Nature of politicians' Internet ventures.

Reports on the plan of automobile insurance companies to increase premiums based on their customers' credit histories. History of consumers with wrecked cars; Prediction of the future loss experience from actuarial data; Concern on the impact of higher rates for lower-income and minority families.

Reports that Chicago, Illinois-based banking company Shorebank Corp. has chosen Baku, Azerbaijan as its headquarters from which to promote small business lending and economic development. Reason behind the banking company's decision to choose Baku as base for its small business lending and economic development operations; Comments of international aid experts about Shorebank's move.

Reports on the increase in home mortgage foreclosures in and around Chicago, Illinois, as of September 20, 1999. Number of Chicago-based families who lost their homes in the year 1998; Reasons for the rise in foreclosure rates in the area.

Focuses on the challenges posed by investors and shareholders to thrift institutions in Chicago, Illinois. Details of the problems facing Damen Financial Inc.; Total assets by the thrift; Factors affecting the increase in shareholder scrutiny and investor activism in small thrift institutions; Comment by hedge fund manager Paul Duggan.

Focuses on Chicago, Illinois-based BankAmerica Corp.'s plan to expand its middle-market lending operation and other businesses based in Chicago, Illinois. Proposal to acquire a retail network in 1999; Goal of challenging the Midwest market domination of Bank One Corp; Decision to lend to smaller companies.

Reports on Japan-based Fuji Bank Ltd.'s decision to close its branch bank in Chicago, Illinois. Fuji's plans in relocating the branch's operations; Fuji's stake in Heller Financial Inc.; Other Japanese banks closing their branches in the city.

Focuses on Chicago, Illinois-based commercial lender Heller Financial Corp.'s effort to improve marketshare. Proposal to market loans to companies that cannot tap the financial markets; Chance to increase returns on new loans; Increased fees on transactions.

Focuses on why bankers, pension fund managers and foreign financiers are eager to offer companies loans, highlighting business park developer David Lambert. Details on the decline in interest rates; Examination of the number of calls which Lambert receives daily from individuals offering him a loan; Comments from Verne Istock, chairman, president and chief executive officer of First Chicago NBD Corp.

Reports on the overhauling plan being launched by the city of Chicago for the O'Hare International Airport, aimed at protecting its ability to compete against other large transportation hubs. Main goal of the city; Reference to a global push by United and American airlines; Plans to protect O'Hare's existing franchise; Listing of inclusions in the plan.

Reports that according to data compiled by the Northeastern Illinois Planning Commission (NIPC), a proposed toll road extension in Lake County. Illinois could lead to problems. Controversy surrounding the opening of the toll road; Reference to forecasts in the 2020 Regional Transportation Plan by the NIPC.

The article presents information on the entrepreneurial career of 36-year-old Patrick Ryan Jr., founder and chief executive of Chicago, Illinois-based Incisent Technologies Inc. Ryan is firm on changing his 50-employees software company into a corporate pillar for Chicago's struggling software community. Ryan is undoubtedly the most connected young chief executive in Chicago.

The article focuses on the boardroom fight at Tribune Co. for the control of the company. The fight poses a loyalty test for a group of homegrown directors with deep ties to company management and the Chicago, Illinois business community. As the fight for control of Tribune unfolds, the six local directors will face increasing tension between their fiduciary duties to shareholders and any affinity they may feel for company management or Tribune itself as an iconic Chicago institution. So far the local directors, along with two other out-of-town board members, have backed management.

The article reports that Joe Leonard, CEO of AirTran Airways Inc., is bringing fare wars to Chicago, Illinois's business travel market. Operating out of Midway Airport, the carrier is slashing prices as much as 44% on popular business routes dominated by United Airlines Inc. and American airlines Inc. at O'Hare International Airport. In Chicago, Illinois, United and American have been forced to cut fares on every new route AirTran offers. Both dropped prices 34% to match the $118 round-trip fare AirTran charged when it began flying from Midway to Dallas earlier in May 2006. Leonard plans to keep adding flights at Midway, where AirTran remains a distant number 2 to Southwest after twice losing bids to buy gates from a weakened ATA Airlines Inc.

The article reports that Motorola Inc. is racing to open its first retail store in the U.S. at Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Illinois, on June 5, 2006, before archrival Nokia Corp. can open its own store just a block away. Motorola, the world's second-largest maker of cell phones, behind Nokia, is close to signing a temporary lease for the former Terra Museum of American Art at 664 North Michigan Avenue, according to people familiar with the plan. Marshall Field, chairman of the Terra Foundation's board of trustees, confirmed that Motorola is looking to move into the space as soon as possible.

The article reports that since presiding over one of the most spectacular flameouts of the dot-com era, Robert Bernard has survived a massive heart attack, scores of lawsuits and a public pillorying by some of the 10,000 employees who lost their jobs when MarchFirst Inc. collapsed in 2001. Now armed with nearly $40 million from investors, he aims to replicate the late 1990's success of Whittman-Hart Inc., which he built into one of Chicago's biggest technology consultancies before engineering a merger that destroyed the company.

The article reports that summer 2006 is going to be the busiest summer ever at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, Illinois. Even with a federally mandated cap on flights, the airport is expected to handle about 241,000 travelers a day in June and July. This is all because major U.S. airlines are expected to cram even more passengers into planes during the industry's busiest months. Accordingly, the Transportation Security Administration has cut security checkpoint staffs nationwide. Airport and airline officials say they are prepared to handle the crush.

This article reports on the disadvantage for small business owners in Chicago, Illinois, who can't afford the T-1 lines larger companies use to tap into the Internet. It creates a struggle to do business here, rather than making it simple. It doesn't bode well for economic development, according to Janita Tucker, executive director of the Peterson Pulaski Business and Industrial Council, which represents 22 businesses employing about 2,000 people in the industrial corridor. Most of them don't have access to digital subscriber line or cable modem service.

This article reports that Chicago, Illinois' mid-sized consulting firms have become acquisition targets for larger U.S. consultancies, as well as Japanese and Indian firms. Japanese tech firm NTT Data Corp. and the consulting arm of Fujitsu Ltd. acquired tech consulting firms Revere Group Ltd. of Chicago and Greenbrier & Russel of Schaumburg, respectively, in the last few months. Just last week, Technology Solutions Co. of Chicago announced plans to buy Charter Consulting Inc., a firm just down the street. Indo-American outsourcer Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp. bought Chicago-based Fathom Solutions LLC in April 2005 for $19 million. The deals reflect a broader wave of consolidation in the industry.

This article reports that Verizon Communications Inc. is making Chicago, Illinois the focus of a national growth in the United States that extends its reach into 50 cities outside of its Atlantic seaboard base. The New York-based phone company has opened a 150-person sales office in downtown Chicago, and has already landed marquee local clients like Aon Corp., Hewitt Associates Inc., Illinois Tool Works Inc. and Zurich Financial Services. SBC Communications Inc., Chicago's dominant local phone company, is countering by offering businesses the latest advance in Internet calling, an upgrade that Verizon has yet to match.

The article discusses the hurdles that the expansion plan of the O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, Illinois, is facing. United Airlines Inc. and American Airlines Inc. may be forced to pick up a bigger portion of the cost for a $2.9-billion expansion at O'Hare International Airport after two rivals declared bankruptcy this month. The city of Chicago is moving ahead with plans for a new runway--the first phase of the O'Hare project--even though Northwest Airlines Corp. and Delta Air Lines Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection this month. Independence Air, a low-cost carrier and a former United partner, is short on cash and has warned it may be next to land in Bankruptcy Court. Those companies, United, American and other airlines have pledged to help foot most of the bill for the airport's expansion.

This article reports that Southwest Airlines Co. is slashing fares out of Chicago, Illinois' Midway Airport and other cities, renewing an industry-wide price war as United Airlines Inc. attempts to exit bankruptcy. Carriers face record fuel prices and a potential falloff in passenger travel on lucrative European routes, a rare bright spot for the industry until last week's terrorist attacks in London. The latest price squeeze ends months of relative stability as the major airlines pushed fares higher to take advantage of strong demand for air travel this summer and to offset soaring fuel prices. Discounters such as AirTran Airways Inc. and Independence Air also have announced sales, leaving United and other major airlines with little choice but to cut prices.

The article reports that after losing thousands of white-collar jobs during the last recession, downtown Chicago is seeing a resurgence in brainpower as big companies open splashy offices designed to attract professionals in their 20s and 30s. Wrigley, took over space at Goose Island left by defunct Divine Inc. Wrigley Co. now has a 200,000-square-foot innovation center and 40,000-square-foot pilot plant at the site. Even staid companies are dressing up their new centers with funky designs, industrial materials, toys like foosball tables and other accoutrements from the dot.com era.

This article reports that the state of Illinois is vying with two other cities to land the corporate headquarters of Freescale Semiconductor Inc., a recent Motorola Inc. spinoff and Fortune 500 company. The high-stakes scramble to land Freescale, the nation's third-largest semiconductor manufacturer, with $5.72 billion in 2004 revenues, is reminiscent of the beauty contest surrounding Boeing Co.'s relocation three years ago, when city and state officials wooed the aerospace giant by offering up to $63 million in incentives. INSET: WHY NOT CHICAGO?.

According to new data, despite its late entry into the market of Chicago, Illinois, for high-speed Internet service, SBC Communications Inc. has erased most of the large lead once enjoyed here by Comcast Corp. A report from the U.S. Federal Communications Commission reveal that about 43% of broadband customers in Illinois used SBC's digital subscriber line service as of December 2003, while 45% tapped the Internet via Comcast's cable-modem service. SBC's gain comes as Chicago's market for broadband explodes. One in five Illinois households had high-speed Internet access as of the end of 2003.

Airbus' new jumbo passenger jet, slated to take to the skies in late 2006, may be late to land at Chicago's, Illinois O' Hare International Airport. O' Hare lags other U.S. airports, including those in Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco and Memphis, in upgrading facilities to handle the Airbus 380, a behemoth designed to carry 555 passengers. Those airports have submitted plans to the Federal Aviation Administration and begun— if not finished— work on the myriad changes needed to accommodate a 1.2-million-pound jet whose wingspan is 50 feet wider than that of the Boeing 747, the largest passenger jet currently in operation. Chicago officials plan to tackle the changes as part of a $6.6-billion O' Hare expansion.

Executives at Navteq Corp. stand to reap riches if the software company proceeds with a planned $500-million initial public offering (IPO) of its stocks. The offering is a throwback to the monster IPOs of the dot com era that executives of Chicago, Illinois, envied but never duplicated. Navteq has not announced a share price for its IPO or revealed what percentage of the company it plans to offer investors. According to Judson Green, a prominent chief executives, if its market capitalization falls in the $1.5-billion-to-$2.5-billion range that analysts expect, options will be worth between $45 million and $75 million.

With contract talks stalled, the largest union at SBC Communications Inc. is turning up the heat on Chicago, Illinois's dominant phone company, asking employees in Illinois and elsewhere to vote this week to authorize a strike. Communications Workers of America (CWA), which represents 2,000 SBC workers in Illinois and about 102,000 nationwide, gave SBC a 30-day notice earlier this month of a possible strike. CWA's contract expired April 3, and the two sides are negotiating through a federal mediator. The union plans to announce the strike-vote results on April 29, one day before SBC's annual shareholders meeting in Columbus, Ohio.

In a bid to boost accountability after the hired-truck scandal, the city of Chicago plans to make public all facets of its $2 billion in annual spending on goods and services. Starting in May 2004, the city will post on the Internet virtually all payments made to contractors, listed by the date the check is cut. The city's web site also will provide a running tally of the total amount paid, to date, over the life of a contract. Over the past six months, the city has posted about 95% of the contracts it has granted since 1998, as well as forms disclosing a vendor's ownership — more than 20,000 documents in all.

Packaging American jobs for export has become a growth industry for Chicago, Illinois. A cluster of local companies are playing the arbitrage spread between labor costs in Asia and the U.S. They range from large players — Chicago-run Accenture Ltd., Linconshire, Illinois-based Hewitt Associates Inc., Kanbay International Inc. of Rosemont, Illinois — to a host of rapidly growing upstarts. Even as globalization erodes employment in a range of local industries, these firms are profiting from American companies' quest for low-cost labor. They're finding new homes in India and other low-cost markets for jobs in computer programming, human resources and financial services. Outsourcing is big business, generating global revenues of $298.5 billion in 2003.

The University of Illinois wants a larger stake in the skinny, flat-screen plasma televisions which can be seen everywhere from rap stars' bedrooms to airport lounges. To get it, the university is enmeshed in a high-stakes legal battle with Fujitsu Ltd., a Japanese conglomerate that bills itself as the world's leading source of plasma-display televisions. In a lawsuit pending before the U.S. District Court in San Francisco, the university alleges that Fujitsu's TVs infringe on patents, it holds for technology that essentially keeps the plasma from boiling in large-screen formats.

In a sign that Chicago's venture capital market is emerging from a two-year slump, consultancy Capital H Group LLC has landed $25 million in financing from Chicago, Illinois-based PPM America Capital Partners LLC. With the funding, the nascent human resources firm is moving its headquarters to Chicago from Milwaukee and embarking on a roll-up strategy and hiring spree that is designed to make it the dominant adviser and outplacement source for mid-sized companies.

Three decades after leaving Chicago, Illinois, telecommunications company Motorola Inc. is heading downtown, setting up a splashy design center overlooking the Magnificent Mile. It plans to recruit hip, young city dwellers reluctant to travel the traffic-clogged Kennedy Expressway to the telecom giant's world headquarters in Schaumburg, cell phone center in Libertyville and other far-flung offices in the north and west suburbs. City boosters see signs of an economic recovery in Motorola's decision to revive its Chicago office.

In a last-ditch bid to block a probe by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, about 100 clients of BDO Seidman LLP have asked a federal Appellate Court in Chicago, Illinois region to reconsider its controversial finding that accounting firms can't use claims of client privilege to shield identities of investors who sought advice on tax shelters, as of August 11, 2003. In an effort to curb the complex tax dodges that have proliferated since the late 1990s, federal regulators are examining whether these advisers violated the tax code by failing to report their participation in questionable shelters.

The sweet sorrow of parting has turned sour for Methode Electronics Inc. and its founding family. Nearly a year after the Chicago, Illinois-based maker of electrical connectors and the heirs of founder William McGinley worked out a deal to part company, the two sides are still struggling to disentangle the family from the family firm. What might have been a quick, clean transition to outside control at the publicly traded company is ensnared in a web of financial dealings between the McGinleys and the business they dominated for more than 50 years. On July 10, the holders of Methode's Class A common stock will be asked to vote on a $21.7-million buyout of the Class B shares, the supervoting class largely controlled by the McGinleys.

Reports on the impact of bankruptcy of Chicago, Illinois-based Divine Inc. on its investors and real estate industry. Losses suffered by founder of the company Andrew Filipowski; Beneficiaries of the bankruptcy; Impact of the bankruptcy on competitors.