Not surprisingly, when searching the internet, there is a marked dearth of images of this building. On November 11 of 2011, the local CBS franchise reported, “Building That Planner Wants Torn Down Gets New Name.” According to the report, the building had been acquired by Cincinnati-based Fifth Third bank. The last time the building was in the headlines, the subject was a plan by an architect who wanted to have it torn down. The 35-story building was completed in 1971, and was originally known as Gateway Center III. Its construction required the demolition of the Union Depot concourse, which featured a 90-foot skylit hall that was inspired by ancient Roman baths. A building planner had suggested that the building should be torn down for an expansion of Union Station, which is running out of room for trains and is coveted as a hub for a regional network of high-speed trains. Architect Martin Wolf, of the firm Solomon, Cordwell, Buenz & Associates, pointed out in May that the legendary Daniel Burnham designed Union Station, had designed it for 400,000 passengers a day, and said at most it has hosted 100,000. “We actually think that Daniel Burnham’s model does work, with a few adjustments, and one of those adjustments would be doing something with the building that is located where he had his existing concourse,” Wolf said. That building, of course, is the one that was just acquired by Fifth Third Bank. As audacious as it sounds, Wolf said that having the building torn down would be far cheaper than trying to find another rail route through the west Loop. The reason the original concourse building was torn down in 1969 was that Union Station had never run at its full capacity. The new buildiing’s supports now stand in the way of any attempt to connect the stub-end tracks to the station’s north and south. Sadly, another uninspired “block” of a building designed by SOM, offends Chicago’s otherwise spectacular architectural landscape.
Posted on: Sat, 20 Dec 2014 18:31:07 +0000