McCormick Place Bullish on $800-Mil Expansion Plan

"Our biggest concern is the economy," Mobley told GlobeSt.com during a Chicago Real Estate Council tour of his facility, which will undergo yet another expansion in the current decade. "Companies are sending fewer people. But they're still having trade shows."

Although December typically is a "dark time" for the exhibition hall, McCormick Place is gearing up for the annual auto show next month, which is expected to draw about 1 million visitors.

"Obviously we're very bullish on exhibitions," Mobley says. "Otherwise, we wouldn't be expanding."

Granted, those expansion plans were in the works well before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, as Gov. George Ryan signed off on the $800-million expansion plan in early August. However, Mobley has no doubt his operation will need the additional 600,000 sf of exhibition space and 200,000 sf of meeting space provided by McCormick Place West, to be built in an area bounded by Cermak Road, King Drive, Indiana Avenue and the Stevenson Expressway. In addition, a 60,000-sf banquet hall will be the biggest in Chicago.

However, completion is at least six years away, and Chicago continues to fend off Sunbelt competitors, most notably Las Vegas and Orlando. Mobley credits some of McCormick Place's surviving, if not thriving, on a change in labor culture brought about through work-rule changes, considered a necessity given the competition coming from venues in right-to-work states.

"We're at 80% occupancy. That's a very, very high occupancy in our business," Mobley says.

However, that occupancy number includes a recent 13,000-member microbiologist convention, which used McCormick Place's meeting spaces. "That's the kind of market we're going after," Mobley says.

Opened in 1960, McCormick Place burned to the ground seven years later. The current 700,000-sf East Building was rebuilt in four years. The 700,000-sf North Building followed in 1987, with an 860,000-sf South Building coming on line five years ago. The most recent arrival was the 33-story, 800-room Hyatt Regency McCormick Place in 1998.