Will we call it the 'old United building' in 10 years?

When United Airlines leaves for downtown Chicago, the company has the potential to leave behind a 60-acre eyesore.

The airline reportedly will announce today that it is moving the 2,800 employees at its operational headquarters in Elk Grove Township to Willis Tower, formerly Sears Tower.

Since the campus sits in an unincorporated area, only Cook County officials will patrol the site to make sure it doesn't fall into disrepair. Suburban officials don't expect that to happen, but United has been leaving the area little by little for the past few years, said Elk Grove Township Supervisor Nanci Vanderweel. It moved its corporate headquarters, consisting of several hundred people, to the city a few years ago. And some operations have been downsized with the financial decline of the industry.

"The parking lot has a lot more weeds than it used to have," Vanderweel said. "When a building that size sits empty. there is always a concern and with this economy, it could sit there a while."

And that's never good, as can be seen by looking at buildings like Wheeling's Kmart, which has been vacant at northeast corner of Dundee and Elmhurst roads since 2002 when Kmart closed stores after filing for bankruptcy.

During the past few months, vandals have ravaged the building's interior looking for copper and other scrap metal. Wheeling officials convinced the building's owner to demolish it last week after it failed to meet several village codes.

Vanderweel said she hopes that doesn't happen to United's buildings and she envisions high-end condos and retail rising on the site, rather than its continued use as office space. She said there are too many office and commercial buildings already in the area.

"There has to be a developer out there who wants a site that big," she said. "No one wants the area to fall apart, including United."

Until then, Vanderweel isn't worried about getting her property tax money.

"United is on the hook for that site," she said. "They'll be paying taxes until they sell it to someone else who will then pay taxes."

United declined to comment Wednesday on the move to Chicago or the future of its Elk Grove Township site.

In 2007, United paid $2.1 million in property taxes on the Elk Grove Township campus, according to the Cook County Treasurer's office.

United's campus is 1.7 million square feet and includes a north and south building. While the campus is unincorporated, it's surrounded by Mount Prospect. Officials there will keep a close eye on the building once United employees move out, said Bill Cooney, Mount Prospect's director of community development.

More than a decade ago, Mount Prospect officials talked about annexing the complex into Mount Prospect, but United officials wanted no part of the deal. Being a part of Mount Prospect would cost the company an additional $500,000 a year in village and library taxes, Cooney said.

Because the site isn't on a major intersection, Cooney said, the area would be perfect a business park for industrial or office buildings.

"I don't see commercial (retail) there," he said. "Algonquin and Dempster just aren't major enough cross streets."

According to some reports, United needed to spend as much as $50 million to upgrade its Algonquin Road operations center, which is part of the reason it instead decided to move to Chicago.

Cooney hasn't inspected the site, but said those costs are probably airline specific and not money needed to upgrade the building.

"I can't imagine United would let the inside of the building go," he said.

And until it sells, Cooney hopes that upkeep continues.

"They've been good corporate neighbors so far," Cooney said.

<div class="infoBox"> <h1>More Coverage</h1> <div class="infoBoxContent"> <div class="infoArea"> <h2>Stories</h2> <ul class="links"> <li><a href="/story/?id=311963">Will we call it the 'old United building' in 10 years? <span class="date">[08/06/09]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=311950">United expected to shift more workers to downtown Chicago <span class="date">[08/06/09]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=311964">Elk Grove facility was 9/11 operations center <span class="date">[08/06/09]</span></a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div>