Burns & McDonnell plans to hire 300 Chicago employees in the next three years and is expanding its Loop office space in preparation, Crain’s Chicago Business reports.
The engineering, design and construction firm headquartered in Kansas City, is adding another floor to its office at 200 W. Adams St., bringing its total footprint in the building to around 80,000 square feet, the company says. It currently leases 50,000 sq. ft. there, with a separate office in Downers Grove. Overall, the firm has 450 employees now in Chicago, 300 of whom work downtown.
The employee-owned company designs, engineers and builds projects in fields including infrastructure, manufacturing and power generation. It wants to add new engineers as well as some marketing and human resources team members, senior vice-president Scott Newland told the business publication.
“It’s all about talent,” said Newland, whose firm is switching from leasing the 16th and 26th floors at the building to take floors 26 through 28. “The reason it makes sense for us to grow here is because there’s good talent in Chicago. It’s also at a reasonable rate and reasonable cost for overheads.”
Newland said he hopes he can predict his company’s growth better in the future than he has so far, at least from a real estate perspective. “We’ve essentially been in perpetual expansion for six years now,” he said.
