Yelp opens in
Merchandise Mart; office is its first in Midwest
Posted: 03/05/2015,
02:09pm | Esther
Castillejo
Mayor Rahm Emanuel speaks at Thursday's opening of Yelp's new
Midwest office in the Merchandise Mart. | Esther Castillejo/For the Sun-Times
Last year, Yelp announced it
would open a Chicago office and employ 300 people.
By the time Mayor Rahm Emanuel
cut the ribbon Thursday to officially open Yelp’s first Midwest office, that
commitment had grown to 400. That office is on the fourth floor of the
Merchandise Mart.
“This is an iconic building and it’s a testament to Chicago’s past,
but with 1871 here, Yelp here, with also Motorola upstairs, we’re reinventing
the future,” said the mayor, mentioning other innovation and technology
companies that have moved to the building.
Yelp, an online business review
company, is expected to hit that 400-employee target in the next 12 to 18
months, according to a press release distributed by the mayor’s office.
“I’m excited because this is much
bigger than what we initially thought,” the mayor said. “When a CEO finally
says ‘OK, we’ll open up an office, we’ll take it as a pilot and that means 400
jobs coming to the city of Chicago, I like a lot of pilots like that.”
Chicago was a “perfect home” for
Yelp’s only Midwest office, said the company’s co-founder and CEO Jeremy
Stoppelman.
“Chicago is a vibrant town that
prides itself on local businesses and the talent of its people,” said
Stoppelman. “We chose Chicago to tap into the city’s extensive talent
pipeline.”
To do that, Yelp is partnering
with Skills for Chicagoland’s Future, a public-private partnership that matches
job-seekers with companies that are hiring. SCF works primarily with unemployed
and underemployed Chicagoans; it will be in charge of screening candidates and
submitting applications to Yelp for review.
“This city is about great jobs,
great places to work and great places to give everybody a chance at a job,”
said Marie Trzupek Lynch, SCF’s president and CEO.
Partnerships, new companies and
investment in education and public transportation “ensures that Chicago has a
future that it didn’t have four or five years ago,” said Emanuel, who is in a
tight mayoral race; he faces Jesus “Chuy” Garcia in an April 7 runoff election.
“We need to do the hard things, the necessary things to build [a bright
future].”
Yelp, founded in 2004, has
offices in 29 countries. Chicago’s new hires will join more than 3,000 Yelp
employees worldwide, Stoppelman said.
The open-concept Chicago office,
which Stoppelman said is one of the company’s most historic offices, has a
training room, a cafeteria and a “genius bar” modeled after Apple’s.
“[The office] is really about
making Yelp a household name when it comes to reviews and really to encourage
people to connect with great local businesses,” said Nicole Warshauer, Yelp’s
regional community manager. “Having the office in Merchandise Mart is really
important and is kind of speaking to that, making sure we are well-connected
and supporting the city.”