A year and a half ago United Airlines purchased 113 acres in Denver for $33 million. A spokesperson claimed that this was meant to expand their pilot training facility. It doesn’t take more than 100 acres for pilot training.
United’s CFO then said there were “no imminent plans” to move their headquarters, noting that the airline has “a long-term lease at Willis Tower. We’ve been there for decades in Chicago. Denver is like Houston. We have lots of facilities in Houston.” Saying that no move is ‘imminent’ was not a denial.
- But they’ve scaled down their presence in Chicago’s Willis Tower (née Sears Tower).
- Their lease runs into 2032.
- They cannot make an ‘imminent’ move because nothing has been built in Denver yet.
United has clashed with city administration in Chicago. And United lacks a corporate campus like Delta and American now have.
A year ago United filed a “large development review” plan with the City of Denver that did include adding 12 flight simulators for pilot training, but also allow for a new corporate campus that would support 5,000 employees, enough to move all the workers at the current Chicago Willis Tower headquarters.
They’ve now revealed more details about how the land at 17671 E. 64th Avenue east of Pena Boulevard near Denver’s airport would be developed. The new Master Plan filed with the city says that they “may build more than 1 million gross square feet of office space..to accommodate over 6,000 employees there, building that include data center space, fitness centers and parking garages for over 5,000 cars.”
The fully built-out flight training campus calls for 865,000 gross square feet of space, while the total development potential for the plot of land is estimated at 2.9 million square feet, according to the filed plans.
United (Nasdaq: UAL) in its infrastructure master plan said the remainder of development was set aside for “flexibility in addressing unknown future business needs.” The airline listed examples such as research space, network operations space, a data center and “associated supporting services.”
In addition to the training center, United’s master plan outlines the potential to develop five office buildings that total over 1.6 million gross square feet, at least two parking structures and common space for uses like a food hall, meeting rooms, fitness center and a 50,000-square-foot conference center.
The airline maintains they have “no set plans beyond using the land to expand our Flight Training Center capabilities.” Saying no set plans is different than saying there are no plans. However, as badly run as Chicago is the Denver airport might be worse.
The new facility is located along the A Line train to the airport, and will “take advantage of the mountain views and anchor the west end of the Project’s pedestrian connection” according to the filing.
Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker says that after rumors began swirling about United’s corporate campus plans in Denver that the airline assured him they weren’t moving out of Chicago. They have so set plans! Not for nothing, but from 1937 to 1963, United Airlines corporate predecessor Continental Airlines was headquartered in Denver.
They might as well go back to Stapleton at this rate.
Where’s @Denver Refugee for his take on this?
The exodus from Chicago continues.
Colorado would love to have UA headquartered there.
and, by the time they build it, they might have gotten B6 out of NYC as well…. /s/
@Tim Dunn
Oh, the ‘Democrat-run,’ ‘blue’ cities and states trope has reared its ugly, ignorant head yet again. ‘Exodus’ like Bob Marley and the ‘good’ book, right?
But, Tim, I thought Denver (Aurora) had ‘filthy’ Venezuelans or whatever lies you and the others regurgitate from Fox/OAN/Newsmax these days.
Chicago’s just fine. So is NYC, SF, and the rest. You don’t have to visit if you’re a scared-y pants.
Chicago has decent metro transport options, even out to the ‘burbs.
A 5000 car parking lot sounds like a real downgrade.
And to top it off, they want to place it next to the airport that’s already suffering significant traffic congestion/access issues. Sounds like a winning plan.
It’s one thing to leave Chicago. But leaving Chicago for Denver..? This seems like poor decision-making to me. (And to be clear, I think Denver is a very nice city, just not the airport.)
Kirby has a place in Vail. Easier commute
@1990 quite right – the reality is that the city of Chicago is seeing a post- pandemic renaissance. Construction is strong, rents and real estate values are rising due to demand and there is a swagger returning that was missing during the pandemic. Similar to what is happening in other vibrant cities across the country like NY, Boston, SF, and my-oh-my Detroit. If you don’t see what’s happening there you aren’t paying attention.
@TimDunn the narrative that the right-wing pushes is tired and just plain untrue. You are smarter than that. Let’s get back to being supportive of our enviable economic engines.
I don’t get how big blue cities are run poorly is a trope? I live in LA. There are 3 frmr city council ppl in prison. I went to SF during the fires three weeks ago and the needle drug usage was rampant. Chicago pensions are 27% funded and in debt $37B. I think we need to be honest that it’s not working.
Now the rest of the country outside blue cities is really, really a huge dump. That’s how bad things are in America. I’m never leaving LA because I’ve been to places like Indianapolis and Orlando. The country has really gone to pot.
just answer the question of whether Chicago is losing population based on the latest data and if it is smaller now than it was in 2020.
It’s not personal or political.
Just fact.
@Been There
Thank you, sir. Please do continue to speak truth here and elsewhere. I may not like the current US President, but I still want our country to ‘thrive’ as they say—supporting big cities and small towns alike is all part of the mix. Likewise, if he can actually pull of a ‘golden’ age, then I’m 100% down for that, but to me, so far it seems more like we’re headed towards a second Gilded age. I really want to be wrong on that. And I just don’t understand the ‘hate’ some folks have been parroting; it’s as if they are foreign agents trying to destroy us from within, or just useful idiots—probably the latter.
@Tim Dunn
You know what you meant. It wasn’t about literal numbers. You’re being disingenuous here.
@Joseph
We can all do better. I got issues with the far-left, too. Any one-party system is a tough one to hold accountable. That said, yeah, I’m never doing the ‘free’ state of Florida, again, either. Wishing you the best on your region’s recovery.
Denver has a vast amount of developable land around its airport, Chicago and Huston don’t.
Chicago sucks and people are leaving in droves. Chicago has just $10.6 billion in assets available to pay bills totaling nearly $48.8 billion. Chicago’s total bills were the second highest in the nation and every citizen is on the hook for over $40,000.
Lying about it and saying everything is fine doesn’t hide the actual facts.
Everyone here is far more worried at the moment about whether or not tanks start rolling into Denver (affectionately referred to by the locals as “Very East San Francisco”) and Aurora (“Very East Oakland”).
That being said, adding another 5,000+ cars per day onto the Pena Boulevard or E-470 corridors is not going help the existing traffic mess. Especially in a state (otherwise known as “Very East California”) that already has it in for cars to begin with.
United would be far better served setting up shop in Houston.
And a distinct lack of water. Unless you count hail.
Let’s bring headquarters back to Houston, TX where they belong
Bingo. See Brian Niccol and Chipotle.
@cairns Go back to Queensland! Just playin—if you are actually from OZ, then you got great reefs.
@Denver Refugee Welcome back to the fiesta! Yeah, this’d is an odd move for UA—if it even happens. While DEN is definitely a hub of theirs, I cannot understand a legitimate reason for actually moving their headquarters, other than the laughable reason that leadership has a property in Vail. Besides, there’s better skiing at Snowmass anyway. All about that The Big Burn!
Everyone who wants to insult Chicago should get out and stay out. We don’t want you here. Personally I’m proud of being Chicago-born, Chicago-bred, Chicago-educated (come back to me when your alma mater has won 100 Nobels like mine), and Chicago-resident. Chicago strong, Chicago proud, and the rest can ram it sideways.
@jd: Agree, Houston would make the most sense financially. For many reasons that are somewhat obvious. And I live near Chicago. It’s a great city that often gets a bad rap. But it has huge fiscal issues and is somewhat expensive. True, the state is good at making sweetheart deals with BIG corporations to keep them around. And this could be a play for that type of goodie in the future.
Corporations typically locate in cities where there are scale and agglomeration advantages, and in-person industry networking opportunities.
I don’t think any of those are present in Denver, a prairie town that is basically the size of San Diego. Better for UAL to remain in Chi-town. Or if they absolutely want to move, relocate to NYC (financial center), Washington (political center), or Houston (business-friendly state).
But otherwise, why move?…
While I think it would be good on a number of levels for United based in Chicago over moving to Denver I don’t particularly care if they move. My issue is that if United moves then Kirby is being a prize weasel again by denying that he plans on relocating the company HQ to be nearer to his vacation home, destroying what credibility he has with pointless lies that will be discovered soon.
20 years too late.
Does it really matter? Why all the speculation? It’s just to make Gary Leff feel important. Nobody really cares what your opinion is. If United moves its headquarters to Denver, they will do it. If they remain in Chicago, so what. Businesses do what they do for reasons that their leadership feels is in the best interest of the company, and no amount of armchair speculation or criticism matters one bit. For a change, why not report on something that’s actually newsworthy or important?
Denver, with a 2023 estimated population of 716,577, is much smaller population wise when compared to San Diego, with a 2023 estimated population of 1,388,320. San Diego surpassed Denver in population by 1960 and continued to grow faster since. Source: Wikipedia.
“TTX’s decision underscores a troubling trend of high-profile headquarters losses for Chicago and its surrounding suburbs. Last year major corporations such as Caterpillar, Citadel, Boeing and Tyson Foods announced relocations out of the Chicago area. Guggenheim Partners more quietly made moves to leave the city and join fellow investment firm Citadel in Miami.” Illinoispolicy.org
Chicago population down 2% in last five years. Chicago has more unfunded pension debt than 43 states.
I was born in Chicago and raised in the suburbs. My family lives in the area. I root for the Cubs. It saddens me how badly managed this once great city is.
@ jns Wouldn’t it make more sense to measure metropolitan population? Denver has fewer people than Austin or Columbus. But, Denver is #19 in metro area (SD is 18), while Austin and Columbus are 26 and 32.
@Dave W., a true metropolitan area population for San Diego also includes the population of Tijuana and it’s suburbs (again in Wikipedia). That calculation makes San Diego much larger than Denver. A lot of cross border traffic occurs between Tijuana and San Diego. Without the bordering city, neither San Diego nor Tijuana would have grown as much, in my opinion. Essentially a metropolitan San Diego not including anything south of the border is slicing off a major part of urban sprawl in one direction. I prefer to use the population of the largest city that lends it name to the airport. After all, a lot of the suburbs have shown their preference of not being a part of the main city. Of course Dallas and Fort Worth both have their names on an airport that serves both. I have crossed the border in one direction or the other at San Diego – Tijuana probably more than 100 times. I have flown on Tijuana flights to and from central Mexico but I have never flown to or from San Diego.
I’m in Denver. First, Chicago has recovered much better from COVID than Denver. Second, getting to DIA is already a nightmare: they won’t expand Peña Blvd b/c it’s Denver’s responsibility/goal to solve global warming, and the A Line RTD train regularly goes out of service (and a backup Lyft costs a minimum of $50 since the airport is all the way out in Kansas.) Third, once you’re at the airport you’d wish you were still in traffic because management is inept, construction non-stop, and lines wrap around the terminal ..backed up because escalators are mandatory (no stays to walk past the lazy standers) and they do no run the interterminal train frequently enough. There are free water filling stations though.
Well written article, thanks Gary. It would seem clear that they do intend to biuld a new Corporate Campus on 17671 E. 64th Avenue, and given that those things take 2-3 years to build (after permitting), it makes sense that they would plan to align the move-in date with their lease expiration. I’m curious about your statement: “However, as badly run as Chicago is the Denver airport might be worse”. For sure I’ll agree that Chicago is run badly, but the term “Denver Airport” seems odd to me. That plot of land is in the County of Denver, which is queerly gerrymandered East and North of Denver to include the Airport. It’s unclear to me that Denver Airport would have any jurisdiction over that property. Of course, all of that said, Houston would be a far better and lower cost place.
Denver is fine for a visit. Not for the current “largest airline” by “insert whatever metric” though. Houston makes MUCH, MUCH more sense. Chicago is a failed city and will continue to fail sadly. It’s too expensive, highly taxed, and unsafe for employees. My opinion.
@BenG Them’s fightin’ words to @O’Hare Is My Second Home
I support having pride for ones’ own city, state, country, but that’s quite the ‘hot take’ to suggest another place is ‘failed’ when the place you are championing has its own issues.
Texas couldn’t keep the power on during that deep freeze (the one in 2021 where your Senator fled to Cancun instead of being there for his people—but I guess that was just fine, so long as it wasn’t a black mayor of LA being in Africa during those fires, eh?); Houston literally floods (remember hurricane Harvey—probably not a good idea to build homes in a flood plain); high property taxes and property insurance in the state make Texas a ‘high-taxed’ state as well, just in a different way; and, it’s an increasingly hostile regime unless you happen to be a well-connected wealthy white straight conservative Christian man who supports the current President (limited social safety net, rule by draconian theocratic ideology). Crimes happen in Houston (and Texas, generally), too—but thankfully it is at an all-time low, basically everywhere in the USA.
There’s a lot of good in both Houston and Chicago. We should be celebrating our cities, not disparaging them. But if you wanna go there, let’s not withhold your own shortcomings.
Chicago is a “has been” city still hanging on to the Frank Sinatra days. Our real estate investment group recently evaluated projects in Deerfield and the W Loop area. As good as the pro formas look, we simply cannot see moving capital out of our home base (Texas) and redeploying to Illinois. Way too much risk of political interference, permitting delays, unforseen tax issues, etc. One can only imagine how such behavior affects a large company like United Airlines. Caterpillar fled Illinois for Dallas. There was a reason.
@DFWSteve
Again, nothing wrong with pride for your own area, but calling any of our major cities in the US a ‘has been’ is just silly and simply wrong.
The five largest state economies (2024) GDP per capita: California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois. The major cities in each state are the true economic drivers there.
Chicago, Dallas, New York, Miami, San Francisco, Houston, Los Angeles…all have their issues, but they’re strong. Plenty of thriving businesses in each.
Blue states and cities do not have to do poorly for red states to do well. Try to lift up, instead of ‘punch down’—treat others as you want to be treated.
@1990, thank you.
@1990. Time for a little economics and finance lesson for you; Investment capital is brutally objective. It moves where it is wanted, whether a small businesses or Fortune 500 firm. UA will be no different.
United has moved all over the Chicago area. Years ago, HQ was by Midway Airport.
It had a campus near O’Hare in Elk Grove Township. But, Elk Grove Village led the opposition to O’Hare expansion. While UA was in the unincorporated area next to Elk Grove Village, the opposition to expansion rubbed UA management the wrong way.
First, corporate moved to a smaller building in the Loop. When substantial space opened in the Sears Tower (real Chicagoans won’t call it the Willis Tower), operations moved out from Elk Grove, and corporate moved to the Tower.
Personally, safety concerns in the Loop are overblown, and Chicago is not failing.
But, there is no space near O’Hare for a corporate campus. Having been to both Denver and Houston, I could be talked into moving to Denver. I would rather conduct a job search in Chicago than move to Houston.
@ 2nd home
I went to the same school you did and lived in the City itself for 40 years and still do when I’m in the USA. Where do you live?– Kenilworth? I avoid walking down main streets in my neighborhood since groups of robbers patrol the main drag looking for people to stick up. Friends won’t take the Red Line due to roaming gangs of robbers. My neighbors who have children moved to FL because they can’t take the school system. I used to live on the “Gold Coast” where people now get shot in front of my building. There are long strings of vacant stores on State Street and Michigan Avenue. Kirby is the most “woke” exec in the country but not when the “woke” mayor wants to tax airlines.
All the red/blue comments are unfortunately not well informed. This is simply a time proven method for United to get tax benefits from state of Illinois and city of Chicago. Used all the time by large companies, see Boeing, Amazon HQ2, etc.
@DFWSteve
Well said, professor. Then, in that case, United will likely stay put, in a thriving blue city and state, and all this talk here is mere ‘speculation,’ which if you recall from economics class, is often not a good way to operate for most. Speaking of, it’s almost ‘29 again—how timely. Try not to ‘lose your shirt’ this time. Don’t jump! Buy the dip!
@jack the lad
Welcome back, sir. I see you’re still shouting hateful nonsense. So ‘great’ of you. I’ve done the ‘free’ state of ‘Florida’ thing, but quickly grew tired of the supercharged inflation down there as folks like you moved in; excessive property taxes outweigh any lack of a state income tax, and property insurance doubles each year, if any of the companies even remain (recall State Farm giving up on Florida recently—yikes). And oof, the traffic, wow, just awful.
Listen, Florida has a lot going for it still—beautiful beaches, sunny, warm weather year around (though, maybe a little too hot half the year). But, good luck on hurricane season and with sea-level rise—Chicago’s better situated on that at least.
Every place has its benefits and detriments. There’s plenty of crime and violence in Florida, too—we don’t celebrate that at all. It’s very disturbing and upsetting anywhere it happens. Enough with the ‘woke’ lies—woke is a joke, a red herring, a distraction by you on the far-right. We don’t need to ‘shit’ on each other—but if you’re going to, I’ll call you out, too. Be better, man.
Ex- UAL here.
This is a pure incentives play here. They just spent millions on a beautiful office redo with coffee bars, lounges and decor since I left. Campus? You clearly haven’t visited “one of the most awarded beautiful international cities year over year.”
They talked about moving back to the old HQ burbs for years when I was there just to get lease negations. (It’s one massive abandoned complex)
When Stapleton closed, all the land eventually went to developers and was built up. The area around the existing training center is completely built up. Not any room for any significant expansion. Should have bought that land when they had the chance.
Interesting concept however you have one major error in your story. Continental Airlines was never headquartered in Denver. Continental corporate headquarters were always in Los Angeles until early 1980’s when they moved corporate headquarters to Houston. Pre-merger United was always headquartered in Chicago. Neither airline ever had its corporate headquarters in Denver.
UA had a pretty big campus in unincorporated Elk Grove Village. Big enough to prevent unilateral annexation by the neighboring towns. When CEO Steve Wolf came on board he lived downtown and United rented office space in the city so he wouldn’t have to be driven to whaT was called EXO. If they move to Denver how much will it cost to subsidize many employees’ moving? For the employees who don’t want to move does Denver have a skilled workforce to take on those jobs? UA was lucky Steve Wolf didn’t move the company to New Mexico where he owned property. All they did was put in nonstop service ORD ABQ until Wolf left.
17 yr at EXO
@1990
“I didn’t mean that literally!” Ie – facts and reality.