Losing the Thompson Center?

We’re still a long ways away from seeing the Thompson Center state government building in Chicago torn down and turned into an annex of the Trump Building a few blocks away.

Will Bilandic Bldg. have longer legacy than Thompson?

After all, the Illinois General Assembly would still have to sign off on any plan to sell the structure to a real estate developer – who could then tear down the 30-year-old building and erect something else (possibly gaudy) in its place.

CONSIDERING THE CURRENT mood of the state Legislature when it comes to all things gubernatorial, it wouldn’t surprise me if the Democratic majorities that dominate both the state Senate and Illinois House of Representatives were to reject the plan purely out of spite.

It will be disguised by the Chicago-based legislators as a desire to maintain the physical presence of Illinois state government within the state’s (by far) most significant city.

Which actually wouldn’t be a bad reason. For a part of me wonders how much Gov. Bruce Rauner is motivated to take this action by a desire to reduce the level of influence that Chicago has over state government operations.

Take away a building that some view as an alternative work place to the Statehouse in Springfield and make some think that the capital city itself doesn’t matter much.

SCATTER THOSE STATE employees who do need to be Chicago-based around various downtown buildings so they quit thinking of themselves as a force. And you also strengthen the morale of those state workers at the Capitol – who often complain about being dissed by their Chicago-based colleagues.

This intersection won't be as political if Gov. Rauner gets his way

I’m sure that when Rauner earlier this week threw out the suggestion that some Chicago-based employees would have their jobs transferred to Springfield, it burned the bottoms (so to speak) of many state workers who would never accept such a move.

Which could make for a round of hiring to get downstate-oriented workers within state government! Politically, it helps make sense to bolster the level of influence Rauner would have over state government.
 

Remember the 'cocaine' scattered on the floor?

Although in terms of providing actual service to constituents (which theoretically is the only reason government exists to begin with), it’s kind of short-sighted.

NOW AS SOMEONE who once did a two-year stint representing the now-defunct City News Bureau in the press room at the state building (when the structure was only about five years old and also got a tour of by my father back when it was a construction site), I’ll admit I’ll miss the building. The same as I miss the old Sun-Times Building with all its own barge-like lack of style right on the Chicago River.

But I’ll also admit to noticing the level of decrepitness the structure has achieved in recent years. Famed architect Helmut Jahn admits his concept of an urban take on the open-air space under a Capitol rotunda has been allowed to go to seed. I don’t know if I’d feel the same level of sentiment if I had to work there now.

But that doesn’t mean the state shouldn’t have a strong physical presence in Chicago. Although I wonder if this means the Bilandic Building (that houses the appellate and Supreme courts in Chicago) could revert back to its old “State of Illinois Building” status.

With a few stray agencies scattered around the Loop. And most people thinking of state government solely when they visit their local driver testing facility to get their licenses or license plates renewed.

SO PERHAPS IN the long run, it won’t impact many people. Although I wonder what happens when a future governor who thinks a little more long-range than the current occupant of the Executive Mansion does decides Illinois needs its own building in Chicago?

Will we be scouring the city for a location – when the perfect site right across the street from both City Hall and the old State Building is taken by a developer who turns it into an over-glorified shopping center with condos on top?

A historic relic of the future?

And if the Thompson Center really does disappear, then what happens to that black-and-white blob of a sculpture by Jean Dubuffet that has sat outside the structure for decades.

Auction it off to the highest bidder (some overly-wealthy individual who’s willing to buy anything)? Or perhaps move it to the Chicago History Museum – put it in the entrance right before you get to see the dioramas of “historic” Chicago.

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Will “Willis Tower” name take among the locals? Or will it always be Sears?

The left (south) side of this equation gets a new name. How will it be accepted by the locals? Photograph provided by State of Illinois.

My memory of the Sears Tower goes back to the 1973 date that the structure – once the World’s Tallest Building in the same way that O’Hare International was once the World’s Busiest Airport – was dedicated.

My father has spent his lifetime in construction (behind a drafting board, to be exact) with companies that erect those massive structures that help define a city’s character. Back in the early 1970s, he worked for a company that had a piece of the Sears Tower project.

SO WHEN THE structure was dedicated with all the pomp and circumstance that usually accompanies the opening of new publicly visible buildings, my father was on hand. And in an attempt to share the moment (which was part of his professional glory), he brought me along.

I was only 7 at the time, but I remember two images. One was the sight of a building that seemed to go on and on forever into the sky. The other was the sight of Hizzoner himself, Mayor Daley (the real one with the “J.” in his name, not the current one with the “M.”) was present for the event. It was the one time in my life I physically saw the man.

Even though during my lifetime I have twice been to the top of the Sears Tower to look down upon Chicago and the surrounding Midwestern U.S., they are not my lingering memories of the structure in the way that many a tourist feels the need to get off of one of those trolley-like buses and take the elevator up 110 stories – being amazed at how much their ears pop on the ride up.

To me, being able to look up at a new structure that seemed endless (I remember it being an overcast day, so the top of the building literally could have been in the clouds) was much more impressive than riding the elevator to the top to look down – and make jokes about how everybody on the ground looks like a batch of ants scampering around the Chicago cityscape.

IN SHORT, THE Sears Tower has become a part of the Chicago character during its just over a third-of-a century of existence in the South Loop.

Yet, a part of that character is going to change.

Willis Group Holdings, a London-based company, said Thursday it will consolidate five Chicago-area offices into one, and move them into 140,000 square feet of space in the Sears Tower.

Because they will now be such a dominant presence in the office building, the structure will be rededicated as the Willis Tower.

PERHAPS IT IS a sign of how bad the real estate market is for those people who own office buildings, but Willis officials say they didn’t have to pay anything extra to get the name change – beyond the $14.50 per square foot they will pay in rent.

So now we Chicagoans are going to have to get used to a new name. On top of all else, it will be an English name, not a Chicago one like Sears, Roebuck & Co. – which is thought of as a classic Chicago-based company, even though they left the city (and the tower) more than a decade ago for the northwest suburbs.

Will this turn into a case like Marshall Field’s downtown department store, which some people absolutely refuse to think of by its current identity as the State Street outlet for Macy’s?

Will this turn out to be like U.S. Cellular Field, which some stubborn White Sox fans absolutely refuse to think of as anything other than its previous identity as New Comiskey Park?

AS FAR AS I’m concerned, “Willis Tower” is going to take some getting used to, particularly because of its potential for half-wit jokes.

How many people will claim the structure was named for actor Bruce Willis, or that the Hancock Center should get The Arnold Co. (which manufactures railcar door openers) as a namesake tenant. Fans of the old “Diff’rent Strokes” television show could then say Chicago has Willis Tower and the Arnold Center.

It was probably Chicago stubbornness that caused the “Sears Tower” name to remain as long as it did. After all, Sears moved much of its corporate presence from the building years ago.

It really shouldn’t be called “Sears Tower” any longer, except for the fact that so many of us Chicagoans are so used to that name that it will continue to linger for years to come – or at least until my generation finally dies off in three or four decades.

IF ANYTHING, IT is that visibility that has hurt the structure in terms of gaining new tenants. Crain’s Chicago Business, in their report on the name change, noted that Willis is the largest company to move into the structure since the 2001 attacks that took down New York’s World Trade Center.

Too many people seem to think that if something similar were to occur in Chicago, the Sears Tower (make that the Willis Tower) would be the natural target.

So now, one of Chicago’s iconic images needs to be updated, since there are countless programs that make mention of the structure whenever they wish to refer to the Second City.

I remember one of those scientific documentaries that attempted to explain what would become of the planet and man-made structures, once humankind ceases to exist.

THEY LITERALLY USED computer graphics to illustrate how, after about 500 years or so of non-maintenance, the Sears Tower would come crashing down to the ground, taking out whatever remains were left of downtown Chicago.

That was a truly depressing sight to behold.

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