Schaumburg, Motorola settle lawsuit over number of on-site office workers after pandemic

Schaumburg and Motorola Solutions settled a lawsuit over the village’s withholding of public financial assistance due to a dispute about the expected level of the company’s on-site employees after the COVID-19 pandemic.

The original lawsuit and its resolution were similar to those between Zurich North America and Schaumburg on the same redeveloping area once fully occupied by a Motorola corporate campus, Assistant Village Attorney Howard Jablecki said.

The settlement resulted in Schaumburg immediately paying Motorola Solutions just under $6.1 million in withheld reimbursement funds from the area’s tax increment financing district. Meanwhile, the maximum amount the company can receive over the life of the district was lowered from $27 million to $23.5 million.

A joint statement by the two parties reads, “Motorola Solutions and the village of Schaumburg acknowledge the constructive efforts that led to this outcome and look forward to continuing a positive working relationship.”

The Zurich lawsuit was filed first and settled first, just about a year ago.

At the root of both disputes was whether agreements for TIF funding from the village required the companies to have a certain number of employees regularly working in their buildings or just based there, Jablecki said.

TIF funding generally pays for infrastructure improvements within the district for up to 23 years.

The Zurich building opened a decade ago as Motorola was in the process of relocating the majority of its workforce from what had once been exclusively its own campus at the southwest corner of Algonquin and Meacham roads.

But Motorola retained a presence there as Zurich and the mixed-use Veridian development took over the majority of the land.

Though both lawsuits have been resolved, the settlement agreements affirmed Schaumburg’s expectation for a specific number of on-site employees.

Zurich recently made its iconic headquarters a multitenant building, with Wheels, Inc. and ADP leasing a total of 360,000 square feet of the insurance giant’s 783,800-square-foot building.

The Zurich building housed about 2,500 employees when the COVID-19 pandemic shuttered offices in March 2020. But it remained largely unused even 15 months later.

Municipalities like Schaumburg view office employees as a daytime population supporting nearby restaurants, stores and service businesses. The village’s financial support of the redevelopment that brought in Zurich and retained Motorola was based on that expectation, officials said.