Walgreens to open new office in old Chicago Post Office

Walgreens Boots Alliance will keep 3,200 workers at its Deerfield corporate headquarters, but will house 1,800 others at a new 200,000-square-foot corporate office facility at the old Chicago Post Office building. GEORGE LECLAIRE/Daily Herald file photo

The old Chicago Post Office building, shown here during a 2016 fire, will house 1,800 Walgreens Boots Alliance employees at a new corporate office facility. Associated Press

Deerfield-based Walgreens Boots Alliance will open a new 200,000-square-foot corporate facility in the former Chicago Post Office building.

The company reported Friday it anticipates 1,800 people will work at the new facility at 433 W. Van Buren St., with about 1,300 of those jobs being relocated from other facilities. Officials for the national drugstore chain say its headquarters will remain in Deerfield, where about 3,200 employees are expected to continue to work.

Digital and IT operations employees supporting the Walgreens business, as well as some Walgreens Boots Alliance global IT personnel, will be located in the new office space.

Walgreens officials will unveil plans for the new office with Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Walgreens employees at an event Monday.

The old Post Office, built in 1922, has been vacant since 1997 when the U.S. Postal Service moved out. It was bought in 2016 by New York-based real estate company 601W, which is renovating the structure into office space that includes plans for a rooftop park and a riverwalk.

Among Walgreens plans is relocation and expansion of the company's Technology Center of Excellence, currently located in downtown Chicago. The center was launched last year and combines the company's retail pharmacy technology teams with digital, mobile and e-commerce teams that currently work in the city.

Walgreens President Alex Gourlay said the new facility will give the company access to the city's talent pool of young, tech-savvy workers.

"Investing in our infrastructure and building our digital and technical capabilities are essential elements of our business transformation strategy," Gourlay said. "The space in the iconic Old Post Office building allows us to attract and retain the best talent from all of Chicagoland."

The new office is anticipated to open in fall 2019. Walgreens employs nearly 4,500 people in Chicago, where it also operates 120 drugstores.

Walgreens began as a drugstore on Chicago's South Side in 1901 and grew into a national chain of 8,100 stores throughout the U, S. Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The company added a global presence in 2014 when it acquired the European drug and beauty store chain Alliance Boots.