Editor’s note: A previous version of this story incorrectly said Freedman Seating Company received $4 million in state money. The company is making a capital investment through a state tax credit program and will be eligible for those credits upon meeting certain criteria.
AUSTIN — Freedman Seating Company is making a $4 million capital investment as part of a state tax credit program to upgrade its nearly 100-year-old West Side facility and add 50 full-time jobs, the company’s leaders and Gov. JB Pritzker announced Friday.
The longtime West Side manufacturer has committed to getting new equipment, preserving its existing 676 full-time jobs and adding 50 full-time positions as part of an agreement through the state’s Economic Development for a Growing Economy program, which provides annual tax credits to qualifying businesses.
“Programs like EDGE don’t give businesses a handout, they help level the playing field. They allow companies like ours to invest, grow and compete while creating more opportunities where they are needed most,” said Freedman Seating CEO Craig Freedman during a Friday press conference at the company’s Austin facility, 4545 W. Augusta Blvd. “Without real, tangible support, businesses will leave. When that happens, communities suffer. We continue to invest in our facilities and our people because we believe in the West Side.”
During the press conference, Pritzker praised Freedman Seating for embodying “so much of what makes Illinois great” through its service to its employees and resilience through recent economic challenges.
The Chicago seating company was founded in 1894 after a successful exhibition by Hyman Freedman, an upholsterer who made seat cushions for horse-drawn buggies, one year earlier at the World’s Columbian Exposition.
Freedman moved into its current facility in 1999, at the time a 350,000-square-foot factory that formerly housed Motorola. The company’s $10 million expansion in 2015 allowed for the opening of a second building nearby at 4501 W. Augusta Blvd., Freedman said. A subsequent expansion in 2024 brought the company with its combined buildings to its current size of 650,000 square feet.
Pritzker praised the company’s dedication to the West Side while assuring that the state will continue to support Chicago businesses despite recent national developments, such as President Donald Trump’s recently proposed tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico.
“Tariffs are a tax paid for by consumers,” said Pritzker. “In the end, it’s a tax on working families and small businesses. Let me be clear, that’s a lot of business that creates jobs for people in our state. We want to trade. We want to sell into those countries.”
Pritzker said imported products from Canada and Mexico — the state’s top two trading partners — are critical for manufacturers such as Freedman Seating. The company makes seats for PACE buses, UPS and Amazon delivery trucks, U-Haul trucks and national commercial bus and rail lines.
Speaking to reporters after the press conference, Pritzker also reaffirmed the state’s dedication to diversity, equity and inclusion in the wake of Google cutting DEI initiatives following Trump’s orders against such initiatives. The tech giant has a campus in West Loop and plans to move into the former Thompson Center in the Loop.
“What [the Trump administration is] really doing is attacking civil rights,” Prtizker said. “That is what the attack on DEI is all about. DEI is not some official term that describes what goes on at a company. It’s just a broad term that we all use to describe wanting to have a workforce that is representative of your community or representative of the interests of the company.”
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