Nearly three months after announcing plans that the company would be moving its global headquarters from Peoria to Chicago, Caterpillar has actually settled on a location a bit further north.
By mid-2018, the world’s No. 1 heavy equipment manufacturer plans to call the Chicago suburb of Deerfield its new home. The company will move into Corporate 500 office park and will move about 100 employees to the new location by the end of this year. A total of about 300 will be moved in total, Cat says. The company has established a multi-year lease agreement with the office park.
The Deerfield location was chosen because of its close location to downtown and Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport. Cat notes that it is centrally located to major interstates and offers direct access to the Chicago Metra, a commuter rail system.
“Following a thorough site selection process, we chose this location because it is approximately a 20-minute drive to O’Hare airport and convenient to the city of Chicago via commuter train, achieving our goal to be more accessible to our global customers, dealers and employees,” Caterpillar CEO Jim Umpleby said in a statement. “This site gives our employees many options to live in either an urban or suburban environment. We know we have to compete for the best talent to grow our company, and this location will appeal to our diverse, global team, today and in the future.”
“The transition from Peoria to the new global headquarters will begin later this year. As we’ve previously indicated, the vast majority of our employees currently in the Peoria area will not be relocating to our new headquarters,” said Umpleby. “With our strong presence of over 12,000 employees in central Illinois, we’ll continue our philanthropic support and civic involvement.”
Caterpillar’s Digital Analytics Hub already calls Chicago home and is located in the city’s downtown Merchandise Mart.