Mittal Steel has chosen Chicago's Loop for its U.S. headquarters.

The company selected a new downtown high-rise — the One South Dearborn building — for the executive offices of Mittal Steel USA. Located at the southeast corner of Madison and Dearborn streets, the 40-story tower is due for completion in December. Mittal Steel expects to occupy its 53,484 square feet of space in January, bringing together members of a management team who have been based in Northwest Indiana, in Ohio and elsewhere.

"Mittal Steel is the largest and most global steel company in the world, so that it is very fitting for us to locate our domestic headquarters in one of America's truly world-class cities," said Louis L. Schorsch, CEO of Mittal Steel USA.

The announcement concludes an exhaustive site search on both sides of the Illinois-Indiana line. Schorsch commented, "Indiana and the communities of its northwest corner made earnest, attractive proposals to locate our headquarters in the area where our largest plants are situated and where we have 10,000 employees. We are grateful for their efforts and will place some technical and office functions in Northwest Indiana, including what we expect to become the most prestigious steel research center in the country."

Hines Interests LP, the developer, said Mittal takes the project pre-leasing level to 90% in the 820,000-square-foot office high-rise.

Mittal Steel USA is the largest steel producer in North America, and is part of Mittal Steel Co. NV, the largest steelmaker in the world. The U.S. company has operations or joint ventures in Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and West Virginia. Formed in April 2005, Mittal Steel USA consists of Ispat Inland Inc. and Mittal Steel USA ISG Inc., formerly International Steel Group. It employs about 21,000 people and has annual production capacity of 21 million tons.

Mittal was represented in the site selection and long-term lease transaction by Todd Lippman, an Executive Vice President at CB Richard Ellis. Hines was represented in-house by Greg Van Schaack, a Senior Vice President, and Jim Walsh, Senior Project Manager, both based at its Chicago regional office.

Mittal Steel Co. NV is the world's largest and most global steel company. The company has operations in 14 countries, on four continents. Mittal Steel encompasses all aspects of modern steelmaking, to produce a comprehensive portfolio of both flat and long steel products to meet a wide range of customer needs. It serves all the major steel consuming sectors, including automotive, appliance, machinery and construction. For 2004, Mittal Steel had revenues of US$22.2 billion and steel shipments of 42.1 million tons.