I work for Sears, so I'm really getting a kick out of most of these replies.

/Knows how the people aboard the Titanic felt.

"Failing retail industries"? Sears is still one of the best as far as I knew.

/I'll buy Craftsmen before any other kind of tool

It doesn't seem to me that Sears has a whole lot of incentive to stay in Illinois anymore. If they're shrinking and need to lower expenses, a move might make sense.

What'chu talkin' 'bout, Willis?

Would be nice if our elected officials would stop using our money to bribe companies. Let them come here on their own through supply and demand. Stop blowing tax payer money.

You couldn't pay me enough to move to Ohio.

This is silly. Is the business of arranging for 3rd party contractors to do marginal or no work that profitable?

HEY! I never approved this!

That's ok, we just lost Chiquita brands to Charlotte, so it's all good.

mr_a: I had to click on the story just to find out if it was Illinois or Ohio that offered them the money.

My first thought exactly

Ohio. $400 million. The same state that could only find $6.5 million to offer Chiquita to stay.

Reminds me of the time I got a Seersucker Suit from Cox's.

/or was it...

Race to the bottom. In a few years they'll move to Mexico, followed by some city in some banana republic with no taxes, then finally to Fresno.

How many years worth of income taxes will it take to recoup that $400M? Apparently our governor has no problem laying off 10's of thousands of state employees and teachers - but we can spend $400M to lure a company here. Don't get me wrong - 10,000 private employees is WAY better for the state than 10,000 public employees but if you're PAYING the company to come here they are still a cost to the state.

Oh and we probably have less than 25 years before they spin the "Lets relocate our headquarters wheel o' free money" once again.

Wish they'd come to Cincy and take up all the space Chiquita is emptying as they move to Charlotte

They could move back to Michigan. As far as I know the old Kmart headquarters building in Troy is still available and sitting empty.

They could come to Dayton and use the old NCR building.

Or to Wilmington and the old DHL complex. It has an airfield.

Or one of the dozens of hundreds of other "former" complexes and buildings scattered across this great state.

\In Dayton
\\Working with a lot of former NCRers.

Fizpez: How many years worth of income taxes will it take to recoup that $400M? Apparently our governor has no problem laying off 10's of thousands of state employees and teachers - but we can spend $400M to lure a company here. Don't get me wrong - 10,000 private employees is WAY better for the state than 10,000 public employees but if you're PAYING the company to come here they are still a cost to the state.

Oh and we probably have less than 25 years before they spin the "Lets relocate our headquarters wheel o' free money" once again.

We aren't spending anything. Its just money in the form of tax breaks. There's a difference between giving someone the money and never collecting money in the first place.

Can you imagine if individuals budgeted lime this?

Kasich and company were shot down with the Issue 2 defeat, so now he has to throw a hail mary and get some jobs kicking fast. Probably finance the spend with bonds, since Ohio's credit is not nearly as bad as other states.

As for where to move Sears, depends on whether the money comes with strings attached. Would they even WANT to go to Dayton? Doubt it.

I was a sears customer for 40 yr but when chase refused an order because of a bill of $30 i cancelled my account and cut up my sears card and emailed them and told them what i thought of theat scenario.
i'll never buy from sears again

Harry Freakstorm: I went back to Ohio but my city was gone.

Niiiice!

As bad as Ohio may be. Illinois is busy shooting themselves in the foot, over and over again.

Good luck finding a workforce as educated and diverse in Ohio, nimrods.

/ Sears sucks

Needlessly Complicated: Good luck finding a workforce as educated and diverse in Ohio, nimrods.

/ Sears sucks

Diverse? Really? Guess you haven't been to Columbus. True, we don't have many Puerto Ricans (that's Cleveland's job), but we have everything else.

/Sensing this will devolve into a thread where Chicagoans show disbelief that restaurant food exists outside of Cook County.

Sure, you can just throw this in the back of your brother-in-law's pickup.

dbrunker: Sure, you can just throw this in the back of your brother-in-law's pickup.
[farm7.staticflickr.com image 333x500]

Yeah, that'll fit.



My brother in law has a big pickup.

dbrunker: Sure, you can just throw this in the back of your brother-in-law's pickup.

I'm curious as to what their current occupancy in there is at the moment.

That's ok, we just won Chiquita brands here in Charlotte from Cin, Ohio, so it's all good.

CognaciousThunk: Needlessly Complicated: Good luck finding a workforce as educated and diverse in Ohio, nimrods.

/ Sears sucks

Diverse? Really? Guess you haven't been to Columbus. True, we don't have many Puerto Ricans (that's Cleveland's job), but we have everything else.

/Sensing this will devolve into a thread where Chicagoans show disbelief that restaurant food exists outside of Cook County.

We have LOTS of Somalians! The largest group of Somalians in the country I believe...

OhioUGrad: We have LOTS of Somalians! The largest group of Somalians in the country I believe...

--Insert bad joke about how they're probably there because Ohio is the state most like where they came from--

wxboy: OhioUGrad: We have LOTS of Somalians! The largest group of Somalians in the country I believe...

--Insert bad joke about how they're probably there because Ohio is the state most like where they came from--

Or most like "back home"

This kind of crap has to stop.. weither it's tax breaks or whatever.. there is no net gain to America by having states (or towns/counties/cities) bidding against each other to "lure" companies there. The only "winner" is the company who get's out of paying taxes... everyone else looses. If a company is going to relocate by what effectivly is a bribe... the second the tax abatements and such are up.. they will pack up and go to the next state/city that offers them a wad of cash.

And companies.. need to be punished for doing this. This shouldn't even REGISTER on their radar to even consider moving from one location to another.. unless where they are is detramental to their buisness (from a location/logistics/resources point of view).

How much time and resources does a company have to spend to uproot and move to a completely new city/state? That shouldn't even be in their DNA to consider. Imagine if the company used all that time and money wasted on all that actually inovating, reinvesting into the company, and doing something productive to their business.. how much farther ahead could they be? How much farther ahead could the US be?

I generally hate the government interfering in anything at all.. but I strongly believe that the feds should tax any company by the same amount of the "bribe" that was handed to the company "bribe" to stop this war of state vs. state.

mrh: everyone else looses.

FTA: A person familiar with the negotiations said in October that the parent of the Sears and Kmart retail chains was looking at Columbus, Ohio, and Austin, Texas, as possible new locations, if the company decides not to stay in suburban Chicago.

Austin? Really Austin? Since when was Sears a tech company?

I could understand Dallas or Houston, but Austin? It's a great city and all but I don't think it's a good spot for a retail company to be (especially compared to DFW or Houston).

That said, if years of watching sport teams threaten to move if things will go their way taught me anything, its that the state will cave to whatever Sears wants to get them to stay in Illinois.