AUSTIN — Freedman Seating Firm will obtain $4 million in state cash to enhance its practically 100-year-old West Aspect facility and add 50 full-time jobs, Gov. JB Pritzker introduced Friday.
The longtime West Aspect producer can even use the cash for brand spanking new gear and to retain its present 676 full-time jobs, Freedman Seating CEO Craig Freedman mentioned throughout a press convention on the firm’s Austin facility, 4545 W. Augusta Blvd.
The funding comes from the Illinois Division of Commerce and Financial Alternative and is bolstered by an settlement by means of the Financial Improvement for a Rising Economic system program that gives annual company tax credit.
“Applications like EDGE don’t give companies a handout, they assist degree the enjoying area. They permit corporations like ours to speculate, develop and compete whereas creating extra alternatives the place they’re wanted most,” mentioned Freedman. “With out actual, tangible help, companies will depart. When that occurs, communities endure. We proceed to put money into our services and our folks as a result of we imagine within the West Aspect.”
Throughout Friday’s press convention, Pritzker praised Freedman Seating for embodying “a lot of what makes Illinois nice” by means of its service to its staff and resilience by means of latest financial challenges.
The Chicago seating firm was based in 1894 after a profitable exhibition by Hyman Freedman, an upholsterer who made seat cushions for horse-drawn buggies, one 12 months earlier on the World’s Columbian Exposition.
Freedman moved into its present facility in 1999, on the time a 350,000-square-foot manufacturing facility that previously housed Motorola. A 2015 growth allowed for the opening of a second constructing close by at 4501 W. Augusta Blvd. A subsequent growth in 2024 introduced the corporate with its mixed buildings to its present dimension of 650,000 sq. toes.
Freedman Seating is now anticipated to exceed 700 full-time staff with this newest infusion of state {dollars}.
Pritzker additionally praised the corporate’s dedication to the West Aspect whereas assuring that the state will proceed to help Chicago companies regardless of latest nationwide developments, reminiscent of President Donald Trump’s lately proposed tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico.
“Tariffs are a tax paid for by shoppers,” mentioned Pritzker. “In the long run, it’s a tax on working households and small companies. Let me be clear, that’s lots of enterprise that creates jobs for folks in our state. We need to commerce. We need to promote into these nations.”
Pritzker mentioned imported merchandise from Canada and Mexico — the state’s high two buying and selling companions — are essential for producers reminiscent of Freedman Seating. The corporate makes seats for PACE buses, UPS and Amazon supply vehicles, U-Haul vehicles and nationwide business bus and rail strains.
Chatting with reporters after the press convention, Pritzker additionally reaffirmed the state’s dedication to variety, fairness and inclusion within the wake of Google chopping DEI initiatives following Trump’s orders towards such initiatives. The tech big has a campus in West Loop and plans to maneuver into the previous Thompson Heart within the Loop.
“What [the Trump administration is] actually doing is attacking civil rights,” Prtizker mentioned. “That’s what the assault on DEI is all about. DEI is just not some official time period that describes what goes on at an organization. It’s only a broad time period that all of us use to explain eager to have a workforce that’s consultant of your neighborhood or consultant of the pursuits of the corporate.”
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