Mesirow Financial Shows Off New Digs
BusinessBy Becky Yerak, TRIBUNE REPORTER
08 December 2009
Chicago Tribune
© Copyright 2009, Chicago Tribune. All Rights Reserved.
For the first time in its 72-year history, Mesirow Financial is moving its headquarters into a new building.
The Chicago-based financial services firm recently began occupying 353 N. Clark St., across the street from its current home office.
It'll occupy floors four through 17 and have options for another five in the 45-floor building.
Mesirow's fourth floor is the first office floor, and its key artwork will feature a photograph that, when viewed from one angle, showcases the city of Chicago, and, when seen from another, the world.
"We had a long discussion about what we want to represent in this space," Mesirow President Richard Price said while giving a tour with Chief Executive James Tyree. "Since Mesirow is Chicago, national and international, we wanted to represent that in our headquarters."
Helping Mesirow on the branding elements of the design was Wisconsin-based Kahler Slater.
The sole duty of two fourth-floor receptionists is to greet and direct clients; phones are answered elsewhere.
The rest of the fourth floor consists of 22 conference rooms named after such notable Chicagoans as Richard J. Daley, Milton Friedman and Carl Sandburg.
"This floor is loaded with technology," Tyree said. "We'll be able to do some state-of-the-art video conferencing, and I'm anticipating sometime soon there will be holographs."
Attending a recent meeting in Abu Dhabi, Tyree said Prince Charles made a virtual appearance.
He "was in London giving a presentation, and in Abu Dhabi it was on a stage, three dimensional," Tyree said. "You could see him walking up and down the stage, from all different angles."
Conference-room lighting adjusts depending on how bright it is outside. The headquarters is loaded with glass offices and walls, a transparent alternative to drywall.
An employee lunch room has prime real estate, near windows looking south, and includes two TV sets. "We did a lot of employee surveys, and coffee was one of the things we asked about," Price said. " Starbucks was clearly one they wanted, and they also wanted Dunkin Donuts." A third offering is Peet's.
The headquarters also has a suite for new mothers that includes lockers and a refrigerator to store milk.
Nearly everyone except senior managers gets new Steelcase furniture, including closets in each work station.
"I'm taking my furniture over," Tyree said. "We had to make sure we sent the right message, and I thought it was the wrong signal to spend money on furniture for Tyree or Price or the 20 or 30 other top guys."
Tyree also noted that Mesirow is toning down its holiday party this year. Last year it was held at the House of Blues in a party scheduled before the economic crisis erupted. This year it'll be across the street from the new headquarters at Westin Chicago River North and serve up appetizers and cocktails.
Northern exposure: Jason Tyler, research operations director for Chicago-based Ariel Investments, appeared last week on PBS' Nightly Business Report. On the show, he touted both Lincolnshire-based Hewitt Associates Inc. and Chicago-based Northern Trust Corp. as promising investments in which Ariel is already a long-term stakeholder.
A moderator pointed out that Northern stock is down about 5 percent this year.
But Tyler called Northern "one of the best banks in the country."
"It has got probably the best balance sheet of any of the mid-sized institutions and a world-class client base," he said. "The market has punished it probably around fears that the interest rate environment is going to stay low for a long time, which is a real detriment to Northern's earnings.
But "this is also an institution that's going to benefit as people come back to the stock market, and they're able to transition a lot of the deposit base into areas where they're earning a higher fee," Tyler said. "And right now they're in a market of rebating fees back to clients because the interest rate environment is so low."
In other Northern news, last week it announced seven minority- or women-owned U.S. brokers that it picked as trading partners. New this year: The Chicago office of M.R. Beal & Co.
Out this year: Chicago-based Melvin & Co., which didn't return a call seeking comment.
"While we'll reserve comment on any specific firm, I can tell you that each of the firms selected in 2007 were invited to re-bid," a Northern spokeswoman said. "Following both a quantitative and qualitative due diligence process, we selected what our process determined to be the seven best firms of the 2009 applicants."
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byerak@tribune.com