![]() Sears purchased 15 buildings from 100 owners and paid the government of Chicago $2.7 million for the block of Quincy Street that was to be closed down. Attorneys from the Arnstein firm, headed by Andrew Adsit, began buying the properties parcel by parcel. Sears then obtained permits to close down one block of Quincy Street, which bisected the site from east to west. Ultimately, Sears acquired the Loop site in 1970. Under the terms of each option, unless the three men were able to acquire at least one of the lots within 90 days, all three options would be forfeited. įeinberg, Rubenstein, and Teinowitz then bought options for three adjacent lots. Rubenstein, and Philip Teinowitz had assembled that site over the previous five years, but they had failed to acquire a neighboring 74,000-square-foot (6,900 m 2) lot from bus company Greyhound Lines. Though the site was more centrally located, it was also relatively small, with about 55,000 square feet (5,100 m 2). ![]() The other was a two-block area in the Loop, bounded by Franklin Street on the east, Jackson Boulevard on the south, Wacker Drive on the west, and Adams Street on the north. The first option was the Goose Island area northwest of the Loop, but Sears's vice president of real estate, Matthew J. The firm consulted with local and federal authorities and the applicable law, then offered Sears two options. Sears asked its outside counsel, Arnstein, Gluck, Weitzenfeld & Minow (now known as Saul Ewing LLP) to suggest a location. Instead, Sears executives decided to consolidate the thousands of employees in offices distributed throughout the Chicago area into one building on the western edge of Chicago's Loop. ![]() Sears executives quickly determined that a new headquarters complex in the suburbs was infeasible, since it would require relocating about 7,000 employees. By 1969, Sears was the largest retailer in the world, with about 350,000 employees. The existing offices were inadequate by 1966, prompting Sears executives to begin searching for a new site. had occupied an office complex on Chicago's west side since 1906. Morgan Stanley became the building's fourth-largest tenant in 2017. Other major tenants include the building's namesake Willis Towers Watson, and law firms Schiff Hardin and Seyfarth Shaw. As of April 2018, the building's largest tenant is United Airlines, which occupies around 20 floors. Local area residents still refer to the building by its old name. The structure was known as the Sears Tower from its construction until the naming rights were included in a 2009 lease with the Willis Group. The lower half of the tower was originally occupied by retail company Sears, which had its headquarters there until 1994, while the upper stories were rented out. ![]() The base of the building contains a retail complex known as the Catalog. The facade is made of anodized aluminum and black glass. The tower has 108 stories as counted by standard methods, though the building's owners count the main roof as 109 and the mechanical penthouse roof as 110. Graham and Khan designed the building as nine square " tubes", clustered in a 3×3 matrix seven of the tubes set back at upper floors. The building occupies a site bounded by Franklin Street, Jackson Boulevard, Wacker Drive, and Adams Street. Each year, more than 1.7 million people visit the Skydeck observation deck, the highest in the United States, making it one of Chicago's most popular tourist destinations. It is the third-tallest building in the Western Hemisphere, as well as the 23rd-tallest in the world. Designed by architect Bruce Graham and engineer Fazlur Rahman Khan of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), it opened in 1973 as the world's tallest building, a title that it held for nearly 25 years. The Willis Tower (originally the Sears Tower) is a 110- story, 1,451-foot (442.3 m) skyscraper in the Loop community area of Chicago in Illinois, United States. ![]() Archived from the original on September 23, 2015. September 1973 50 years ago ( September 1973)ġ04, with 16 double-decker elevators, made by Westinghouse, modernized by Schindler Group and recently remodernized by Otis Elevator CompanyĪon Fire Protection Engineering, formerly Schirmer Engineering Corporation (Fire) ![]()
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