SE Michigan battles to lure Sears headquarters, 5,000 jobs



5:39 PM, Jun. 24, 2011 |
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With giant Sears Holdings Corp. mulling a headquarters move from its base in suburban Chicago, Southeast Michigan has jumped into the fray to try to lure the retailer.

A package of incentives worth at least $50 million is being offered to Sears to relocate its headquarters and some 5,000 jobs to metro Detroit, two sources familiar with the talks said Friday.

Two potential sites in metro Detroit are being offered to Sears. One is Regent Court, a Ford Motor office building on Ford Road in Dearborn. The other is the former Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan complex on West 11 Mile Road in Southfield, which is on the market as BCBSM moves employees to downtown Detroit.

Both Wayne and Oakland counties, as well as the Michigan Economic Development Corp., are participating in the attempt to lure the Sears headquarters, the sources said. MEDC had no comment on the effort.

The incentives being offered are said to include a mix of tax breaks, relocation grants, housing incentives and more.

Moving to Southeast Michigan would be a homecoming of sorts. The former Kmart Corp., then based in Troy, bought Sears in 2005 to form Sears Holdings and left Troy for combined corporate offices in suburban Chicago.

Michigan is just one state lining up with offers. Published media reports in Chicago have said that Sears has been in talks with North Carolina, Texas, Tennessee and New Jersey about leaving its Hoffman Estates-based headquarters in suburban Chicago after its state and local tax incentives expire in 2012.

Sears and other large companies have been upset with a new income tax hike enacted in Illinois in response to the state’s budgetary concerns.

Kimberly Freely, a spokesperson for Sears Holdings Corp., issued a non-committal statement Friday. “We do owe it to our associates and shareholders to consider options and alternatives and intend to be very thoughtful and thorough in our deliberations,” the statement said. “Speculation about whether Sears will remain in Hoffman Estates is not fair to our associates, particularly so early in this process.”

Sears moved into its current Hoffman Estates offices after leaving its home in Chicago’s Sears Tower [[now the Willis Tower) 22 years ago.

In addition to more than 5,000 Sears jobs at the headquarters, the company supports several thousand more jobs in local vendors and contractors in the area.

Millions of dollars in tax revenue flow from Sears’ presence. A study published earlier this year reported that if Sears left the Chicago region, annual tax revenues to the state of Illinois would decline by more than $130 million.
It was not clear when Sears would make a decision about whether to stay in suburban Chicago or move somewhere else.