Kroger subsidiaries relocate to Chicago

The Kroger Co.’s Home Chef and 84.51°divisions are relocating to Chicago’s onetime main post office, where they intend to add, in the next few years, more than 300 jobs combined, according to published reports.

Home Chef aims to move its headquarters to a 75,000-square-foot space in the building by December, The Chicago Tribune reported, noting that the new headquarters will feature a research kitchen and the customer support department in one centralized location.

The meal-kit company, which was acquired by Kroger in 2018, currently has 250 employees working out of three smaller offices in the Windy City, including its present headquarters within the Wrigley building. Home Chef also revealed plans to hire 150 more employees over the next few years.

Meanwhile, 84.51°, Kroger’s data analytics arm since 2015, will move into a 57,000-square-foot office in the Old Post Office this fall, with plans to go from 86 Chicago employees to 250 over the next few years in a space large enough to accommodate 300 employees.

Other future tenants of the building will include drug store chain Walgreens, in some of whose locations Home Chef is coincidentally selling meal kits, and Ferrara Candy. The 2.8 million-square-foot structure, at 433 W. Van Buren St., is being converted into offices in an $800 million-plus project undertaken by New York-based 601W Cos.