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143-573: The Willis Tower , originally and still commonly referred to as 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. 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. It

286-631: A five-pointed star (★) additionally appears beside the button for the main entry floor. In the United States , the five-pointed-star marking is mandated by Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) , as described in Section 4.10.12(2) of the ADA Accessibility Guidelines for Buildings and Facilities (ADAAG). However this may be used to simply indicate a way out, such as to indicate

429-586: A food hall on the lower stories. In 2020, insurance company Aon had proposed acquiring Willis Towers Watson (which had succeeded the Willis Group as the building's owner), prompting speculation that the building could be renamed again. The planned merger was canceled in 2021 following an antitrust lawsuit from the United States Department of Justice . The building's renovation was completed in May 2022. At

572-501: A sky lobby . As an example, the residential elevators at the John Hancock Center all have their main floors labeled as the 44th as in order to get from a residential floor to the ground one would need to take two elevators: one from the residences to the sky lobby, and the other from the sky lobby to the ground. In the event more than one floor could be considered main floor, such as when a building has exits on more than one floor,

715-598: A "1st floor" and a "ground floor", they may be labelled 1 and G, or M (for "Main") and LM (for "Lower Main"), the latter two being more common in Canada outside Quebec. M or MZ may also be used to designate a mezzanine level, when it is not counted as a separate floor in the building's numbering scheme. If an elevator has two doors, floors on one side might end up getting an R suffix for "rear", especially if on one floor both doors open. In modern signage, at least in North America,

858-469: A $ 1 billion loan from a group of banks including Goldman Sachs . The new loan replaced $ 750 million of CMBS debt that was maturing. The following year, because of the increasing costs of the renovation, Blackstone received a new $ 1.3 billion loan from Deutsche Bank and Barclays . The Wacker Drive "Lunchbox" entrance was demolished in early 2018 to make way for the Catalog. A steel globe next to

1001-516: A 1,200-seat cafeteria, commercial space, service areas, and a loading dock for 17 trucks. The basement also contained a 150-spot parking garage. As of 2022, the building's base covers 463,000 square feet (43,000 m) and contains two lobbies for tenants. The building's tenants primarily enter from Wacker Drive and Franklin Street. Shoppers, restaurant patrons, and visitors to the Skydeck observation deck use

1144-656: A 7-storey building is called une maison à 6 (six) étages . Mezzanines may or may not be counted as storeys. This convention can be traced back to Medieval European usage. In countries that use this system, the floor at ground level is usually referred to by a special name, usually translating as "ground floor" or equivalent. For example, Erdgeschoss ("ground floor") in Germany (sometimes however, Parterre , adopted from French), piano terra or pianterreno (lit. "ground floor") in Italy, begane grond (lit. "trodden ground") in

1287-476: A building need not be all the same height—often the lobby is taller, for example. One review of tall buildings suggests that residential towers may have 3.1 m (10 ft 2 in) floor height for apartments, while a commercial building may have floor height of 3.9 m (12 ft 9.5 in) for the storeys leased to tenants. In such tall buildings (60 or more storeys), there may be utility floors of greater height. Additionally, higher levels may have less floor area than

1430-535: A buyer, in part because the lower stories were too large for many potential tenants. Sears nearly sold the tower to Canadian company Olympia & York , but the deal was canceled in September 1989 because the two firms could not agree on who would pay the property taxes. In November 1989, Sears decided to instead refinance the building. The next year, Sears took out a mortgage loan on the tower for $ 850 million from MetLife and AEW Capital Management , with MetLife as

1573-602: A circumevention of construction regulations of the 19th and early 20th centuries), rez-de-chaussée (from French street level , where rez is the old French of ras ("scraped"), chaussée ("street"). ) in France, parter in Poland and Romania, prízemie ("by the ground") in Slovakia, and pritličje ("close to the ground") in Slovenia. In some countries that use this scheme,

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1716-412: A concrete floor every day. Contractors built two temporary kitchens on the site for workers, and telephone and loudspeaker systems were installed on every floor to allow workers to communicate. In addition, contractors installed temporary generators that could supply up to 14,000 kilowatts (19,000 hp) simultaneously; during the winter, most of this electricity was used to heat the exposed steel beams on

1859-400: A convention where there may be an "upper" and "lower" level of the same floor number, (e.g.: "1U/U1" = Upper 1st, "L2/2L" = "Lower 2nd" and so on), although the elevators will typically only serve one of the two levels, or the elevator lobby for each floor pair may be between the two levels. In 19th-century London, many buildings were built with the main entrance floor a meter above ground, and

2002-444: A footbridge, which would respectively contain 50,000 square feet (4,600 m) and 30,000 square feet (2,800 m) on each floor, but this was also infeasible. Some floors were designed with smaller footprints to attract prospective lessees, so the building's height was increased to meet Sears's floor-area requirements. Architect Bruce Graham and structural engineer Fazlur Rahman Khan , both of whom were partners with SOM, proposed

2145-513: A garden (called rez-de-jardin ). Buildings which have two "ground floors" at different levels (on two opposite faces, usually) might have both. The same differentiation is used as well in some buildings in Croatia. The lower level is called razizemlje (abbr. RA ), and the upper prizemlje (PR). If there is only one ground floor, it is called prizemlje . The latter usage is standard for smaller buildings, such as single-family homes. In

2288-458: A given building's floor designations are unregulated. Thus, some apartment buildings in the largest city, Ho Chi Minh City , have posted floor numbers according to the northern scheme, while others label the ground floor as "G" or the thirteenth floor as "12  bis ". An extremely small number of American high-rise buildings follow the British/European system, often out of a desire on

2431-536: A hallway, even numbers for rooms on the other side. An offset may be used to accommodate unnumbered floors. For example, in a building with floors labelled G, M, 1, 2, ..., 11 and 12, the fourth room in each of those floors could be numbered 1004, 1104, 1204, 1304, ..., 2204 and 2304, respectively—with an offset of 11 in the floor numbers. This trick is sometimes used to make the floor number slightly less obvious, e.g. for security or marketing reasons. In some buildings with numbered rooms, UK-like G, 1, ... floor numbering

2574-505: A neighboring 74,000-square-foot (6,900 m) lot from bus company Greyhound Lines . Feinberg, Rubenstein, and Teinowitz then bought options for three adjacent lots. 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. Ultimately, Sears acquired the Loop site in 1970. Sears then obtained permits to close down one block of Quincy Street, which bisected

2717-449: A new site. By 1969, Sears was the largest retailer in the world, with about 350,000 employees. Sears executives quickly determined that a new headquarters complex in the suburbs was infeasible, since it would require relocating about 7,000 employees. Instead, Sears executives decided to consolidate the thousands of employees in offices distributed throughout the Chicago area into one building on

2860-498: A pinnacle height of 1,729 feet (527 m), it is the third-tallest freestanding structure in the Americas. It is the 16th-tallest freestanding structure in the world by pinnacle height. Storey A storey ( Commonwealth English ) or story ( American English ; see spelling differences ), is any level part of a building with a floor that could be used by people (for living, work, storage, recreation, etc.). Plurals for

3003-674: A plaza on Jackson Boulevard and the entrance on Wacker Drive. Architectural firm Gensler designed the renovation. A rooftop terrace was built atop the Catalog, and the building's HVAC systems were overhauled. Most of the building's elevators, excluding those that served the Skydeck, were also renovated for the first time in the tower's history. The new elevators would be faster than the original elevators and would use use 35 percent less energy. The building's owners installed artwork by Olafur Eliasson , Jacob Hashimoto , and other artists. To fund these improvements, in February 2017, Blackstone obtained

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3146-462: A portion of the building and obtained the naming rights. On July 16, 2009, the building was officially renamed the Willis Tower. By 2011, the building's owners were considering selling a partial ownership stake, or even the entire building, to an investor. The next year, United Airlines announced it would move its corporate headquarters from 77 West Wacker Drive to the Willis Tower. By March 2015,

3289-465: A relatively common solution is to simply have no star and have other indications to indicate a main floor. A less commonly used solution has more than one star. There is no particular standard convention for the numbering of levels below ground. In English-speaking countries, the first level below ground may be labelled B for "Basement", LL for "Lower Level" or "Lower Lobby", C for "Cellar", or U for "Underground". In British buildings, LG for "Lower Ground"

3432-574: A result, the foundation was excavated using 201 caissons , of which 114 reached the underlying limestone. The caissons created holes that measured up to 10 feet (3.0 m) across. Some holes at the northwestern and northeastern corners of the site filled up with groundwater and had to be drained. Workers next placed steel tubes into the holes, then poured concrete around the tubes. During the Sears Tower's construction, SOM and Chicago government officials considered adding "smoke free and fire free" areas to

3575-626: A right to undistorted television reception. Meanwhile, the FCC declined to act on the height dispute on the grounds it did not have jurisdiction. The FAA approved the antennas atop the tower in June 1972, and the Illinois Supreme Court affirmed the previous rulings by Lake and Cook County circuit courts at the end of the month. Work was temporarily paused that July due to a labor strike . The next month, Sears formally announced plans for broadcast antennas on

3718-497: A taller antenna. Although the Sears Tower would contain 4.4 million square feet (410,000 m) of space, only about 3.7 million square feet (340,000 m) would be used as offices. Work on the building's foundation commenced in August 1970. Contractors excavated the lot to a depth of 50 feet (15 m), and they removed 180,000 cubic feet (5,100 m) of dirt from the site. By that November, Spencer, White & Prentis Inc.

3861-488: A tower with 55,000-square-foot (5,100 m) floors in the lower part of the building, as well as a series of setbacks with gradually tapering floor plates, giving the tower its distinctive look. During the design process, one of the architects reportedly pulled out nine cigars and staggered them vertically until the pair both agreed to the arrangement. This allowed Sears to occupy the large lower stories, while providing more conventional office space that could be rented out on

4004-444: Is United Airlines , which occupies around 20 floors. Other major tenants include the building's namesake Willis Towers Watson , and law firms Schiff Hardin and Seyfarth Shaw . Morgan Stanley became the building's fourth-largest tenant in 2017. Sears, Roebuck & Co. had occupied an office complex on Chicago's west side since 1906. The existing offices were inadequate by 1966, prompting Sears executives to begin searching for

4147-661: Is a special charter municipality. The Journal of the Proceedings of the City Council of the City of Chicago is the official publication of the acts of the City Council. The Municipal Code of Chicago is the codification of Chicago's local ordinances of a general and permanent nature. Chicago is also part of Cook County . The Government of Cook County is primarily composed of the Board of Commissioners , other elected officials such as

4290-474: Is also often used to indicate Street), C for "Casino" or "Concourse", R for "Restaurant" or Roof, PH for "Penthouse", OD for " observation deck ", W for Walkway, T for Tunnel, Ticketing or Trains, etc. In some US buildings, the label G on the elevator may stand for the building's "Garage", which need not be located on the "Ground" floor. Sometimes GR might be used instead. Fairmont Royal York Hotel in Toronto marks

4433-485: Is commonly encountered. If there is more than one basement, either the next level down may be marked SB for "Sub-Basement" or all lower levels can be numbered B1, B2, B3, B n . Negative numbers are sometimes used, this being more common in Europe: −1 for the first level below ground, −2 for the second one, and so on. Letters are sometimes used: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, etc. There can also be split-level parking levels with

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4576-461: Is ever used it means the ground-level floor (although primer piso is used mainly for indoor areas, while planta baja is also used for areas outside the building). Most parts of East and Southeast Asia — including China (except for Hong Kong ), Japan, Korea, and Singapore — follow the American system. Indonesia uses both the American and European systems. In the grammar of the respective languages,

4719-522: Is made of anodized aluminum and black glass. Alcoa manufactured 4 million pounds (1.8 kt) of aluminum sheeting for the building's facade. Black bands appear on the tower around the 29th–32nd, 64th–65th, 88th–89th, and 104th–108th floors. These elements are louvers to ventilate the building's environmental support systems and obscure its belted trusses . The rest of the facade is made of 16,000 rectangular windows. all of which measure 5 by 8 feet (1.5 by 2.4 m) and are tinted with bronze. Outside

4862-418: Is often pitched and/or at a different height from that of other floors. A penthouse is a luxury apartment on the topmost storey of a building. A basement is a storey below the main or ground floor; the first (or only) basement of a home is also called the lower ground floor. Split-level homes have floors that are offset from each other by less than the height of a full storey. A mezzanine , in particular,

5005-566: Is often referred to, particularly in the United Kingdom, as a bungalow . The tallest skyscraper in the world, the Burj Khalifa , also has the greatest number of storeys with 163. The height of each storey is based on the ceiling height of the rooms plus the thickness of the floors between each pane. Generally this is around 3.0 m (10 ft) total; however, it varies widely from just under this figure to well over it. Storeys within

5148-595: Is reflected in newer buildings. Some buildings in Singapore do use SL (Street Level) for ground level, while others such as Nex and West Coast Plaza uses the European scheme, albeit using "Basement 1" for ground level storey. Vietnam uses both the North American and European schemes, generally depending on the region. In northern and central Vietnam, including the capital Hanoi , tầng refers to any floor, including

5291-400: Is sometimes used to separate the floor from the room (2.15 refers to 2nd floor, 15th room and 21.5 refers to 21st floor, 5th room) or a leading zero is placed before a single-digit room number (i.e. the 5th room of floor 21 would be 2105). Letters may be used, instead of digits, to identify the room within the floor—such as 21E instead of 215. Often odd numbers are used for rooms on one side of

5434-530: Is the third-tallest building in the Western Hemisphere, as well as the 23rd-tallest in the world . 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. The building occupies a site bounded by Franklin Street, Jackson Boulevard , Wacker Drive , and Adams Street. Graham and Khan designed

5577-452: Is typically a floor halfway between two floors. Floor numbering is the numbering scheme used for a building's floors. There are two major schemes in use across the world. In the first system, used in such countries as the United States, Canada, China, Japan, Norway, Russia, and other ex-Soviet states, the number of floors is counted literally; that is, when one enters a building through the ground-level front door, one walks quite literally on

5720-426: Is used, but with rooms numbered from 200 on the "first floor" (above the ground floor), 300 on the 2nd floor, and so on (which actually resembles US-like floor numbering). Government of Chicago The City Council is the legislative branch and is made up of 50 alderpersons, one elected from each ward in the city. The council takes official action through the passage of ordinances and resolutions and approves

5863-496: The Chicago Tribune , the top of the building would be able to bend by as much as 7 inches (180 mm), returning to its normal position within 7.2 seconds. The Willis Tower's basement extends 50 feet (15 m) deep, resting on a 5-foot-thick (1.5 m) concrete slab. The ground directly beneath the building was largely made of clay; the underlying layer of limestone was as much as 100 feet (30 m) beneath ground level. As

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6006-520: The FBI and charged with plotting to destroy the tower. Deputy FBI Director John Pistole described their plot as "more aspirational than operational". The case went to court in October 2007. After three trials, five of the suspects were convicted and two acquitted. The alleged leader of the group, Narseal Batiste , was sentenced to 13 + 1 ⁄ 2 years in prison. In response to the perceived threat of an attack,

6149-523: The James R. Thompson Center . In 2012, St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist Pat Gauen argued that "in the reality of Illinois politics, [Springfield] shares de facto capital status with Chicago." According to Gauen, "Everybody who's anybody in Illinois government has an office in Chicago." University of Illinois researcher and former member of the Illinois legislature Jim Nowlan stated "It's almost like Chicago

6292-568: The September 11 attacks , two of the largest tenants, Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch, immediately announced plans for vacating 300,000 ft of space. In 2003, Trizec sold its holdings of the tower to MetLife for $ 9 million. In March 2004, MetLife announced that it would sell the building to a group of investors, including Joseph Chetrit , Joseph Moinian , Lloyd Goldman , Joseph Cayre , and Jeffrey Feil of New York, as well as American Landmark Properties of Skokie, Illinois . The quoted price

6435-585: The Sheriff , State's Attorney , Treasurer, Board of Review, Clerk, Assessor, Recorder, Circuit Court judges and Circuit Court Clerk, as well as numerous other officers and entities. Illinois State police also operate in Chicago. Other agencies that operate in the city of Chicago include the Chicago Transit Authority and the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority , both of which were created by

6578-511: The Standard Oil Building , which had held the record for one month. At the time, the Sears project employed 1,600 workers in three shifts; one worker had been killed during the project so far. The building's final completion had been delayed significantly due to labor strikes and bad weather. The concrete work had reached the 77th floor, while the steel superstructure had reached the 84th floor;

6721-580: The entresuelo or entresòl and principal are marked E and P, respectively. In France, floors are usually marked the same way as in Spain; however, the letters for the ground floor are RDC ( rez-de-chaussée ), seldom simplified to RC. This scheme is also found in some buildings in Quebec. Where these exist, there are high ground RCH ( rez-de-chaussée haut ) and lower ground RCB ( rez-de-chaussée bas ), or garden ground RJ ( rez-de-jardin ) and former ground RC. In Portugal,

6864-617: The state government of Illinois . The United States Postal Service operates post offices in Chicago. The main Chicago Post Office is located at 433 West Harrison Street in the Near West Side community area. The post office is the only 24-hour post office in the United States. As of 2012 most cabinet officers and constitutional officers of the Government of Illinois conduct a majority of their business in Chicago, with offices at

7007-399: The thirteenth floor in their floor numbering because of triskaidekaphobia , a common superstition surrounding this number. The floor numbering may either go straight from 12 to 14, or the floor may be given an alternative name such as "Skyline" or "14A". Due to a similar superstition in east Asia, some mainland Chinese, Taiwanese, and Indonesian buildings (typically high-rises) omit or skip

7150-420: The "upper" or "lower" level from each intermediate landing. This halves any building costs associated with elevator shaft doors. Where the total traffic necessitates a second elevator the alternate floors strategy is sometimes still applied, not only for the doorway reduction but also, provisionally upon the passengers preferring no particular floor beyond capacity, it tends toward halving the total delay imposed by

7293-405: The 33rd floor. During a fire, elevators would be dispatched to the affected floors to assist with evacuation. The building also had 16 escalators, including a set of double-height escalators that traveled from the main lobby to the lower mezzanine. Another set of escalators connects the 33rd and 34th stories. When the building was completed, the main entrance was on Wacker Drive to the west. There

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7436-448: The 4th floor along with other floor numbers ending in 4 such as 14 and 24. The floor above the third would be numbered as the fifth, and so on. This is because of tetraphobia : in many varieties of Chinese, the pronunciation of the word for "four" is very similar to the pronunciation of the word for "to die". Through Chinese cultural and linguistic influence, tetraphobia is common in many countries of East Asia. For this reason, apartments on

7579-602: The 4th floor in Asian countries such as Taiwan have traditionally been cheaper to rent. In Hong Kong, the British numbering system is now generally used, in English and Chinese alike. In some older residential buildings, however, the floors are identified by signs in Chinese characters that say " 二樓 " ("2 floor") at the floor just above ground, as in the North American system. For those buildings,

7722-460: The 50th, 66th, and 90th floors. The lowest 50 stories contain nine tubes and cover 52,000 square feet (4,800 m) each. The northwest and southeast tubes terminate at the 50th floor. The 51st through 66th floors each span 41,420 square feet (3,848 m), above which the northeast and southwest tubes end. From the 67th to 90th floors, each story is shaped like a cross, covering 30,170 square feet (2,803 m). The north, east, and south tubes end at

7865-588: The 90th floor; the remaining west and center tubes reach 108 floors, with an area of 12,283 square feet (1,141.1 m) on each of the top stories. The Sears Tower was the first building to use this innovative design. It was both structurally efficient and economic: at 1,450 feet, it provided more space and rose higher than the Empire State Building and cost much less per unit area. The system would prove highly influential in skyscraper construction and has been used in most supertall buildings since, including

8008-581: The Chinese phrase " 三樓 " or its English equivalent "3rd floor" may refer either to the storey three levels above ground (as in the modern numbering), which is actually labelled " 四樓 " ("4 floor"), or to the storey with the sign " 三樓 " ("3 floor"), which is only two levels above ground. This confusing state of affairs has led, for example, to numerous errors in utility billing. To avoid ambiguity, business forms often ask that storey numbers in address fields be written as accessed from an elevator . In colloquial speeches,

8151-546: The European scheme was formerly used (as in France), but by now it has been mostly replaced by the US system, so that rez-de-chaussée and premier étage ("first stage") are now generally equivalent in Quebec. Mexico, on the other hand, uses the European system. The North American scheme is used in Finland , Norway , and Iceland . The Icelandic term jarðhæð ("ground floor") refers to

8294-646: The Hawaiian-language floor label uses the British system, but the English-language floor label uses the American system. For example, Papa akolu (P3) is equivalent to Level 4 (4 or L4). In Greenland, the Greenlandic-language floor label uses the American system, but the Danish-language floor label uses the British system. Plan pingasut (P3) is equivalent to Level 2 ( Plan to or P2). In most of

8437-633: The Illinois Citizens' Committee for Broadcasting filed a formal complaint with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in February 1972. The first lawsuit against the building was filed by the state attorney in neighboring Lake County on March 17, 1972. A second suit was filed on March 28 in Cook County Circuit Court by the villages of Skokie , Northbrook , and Deerfield, Illinois . Sears filed motions to dismiss

8580-461: The John Hancock Center, citing a study which showed that relocating to the Sears Tower would provide only minimal benefits. Documents released in late 1973 indicated that the Sears Tower would cause much more interference than either Sears or the television stations had disclosed. WLS-TV moved to the Sears Tower in February 1974, followed by WTTW the next month. By March 1974, three-fourths of

8723-569: The Lake and Cook County lawsuits, which both sought to cap the building at 67 stories. Sears studied the possibility of erecting antennas atop its tower in April 1972, and the tower's construction continued, even as decisions on both lawsuits were delayed. At the end of the month, the company applied for permission to increase the building's height limit by 350 feet (110 m) and install a new antenna, although eight of Chicago's ten television stations criticized

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8866-725: The Netherlands, planta baja (Castilian) or planta baixa (Catalan) in Spain (both meaning "bottom floor"), beheko solairua in Basque, andar térreo ("ground floor") in Brazil, rés-do-chão ("adjacent to the ground") in Portugal, földszint ("ground level") in Hungary (although in Budapest the félemelet ("half floor", i.e. mezzanine ) is an extra level between the ground and first floors, apparently

9009-715: The Sears Tower was the world's tallest building but not the world's tallest structure. Toronto's CN Tower was about 350 feet (106.7 m) taller, although the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) does not consider the CN Tower to be a building, since it does not have floors from the ground up . The Willis Tower remains the third tallest building in the Americas and in the Western Hemisphere (after One World Trade Center and Central Park Tower in New York City). With

9152-422: The Skydeck, opened on June 22, 1974. Located on the 103rd floor, 1,353 feet (412.4 m) above ground level, it is the highest observation deck in the United States and one of Chicago's most famous tourist attractions. Tourists can experience how the building sways in wind and see far over the plains of Illinois and across Lake Michigan to Indiana , Michigan , and Wisconsin in clear conditions. Elevators reach

9295-567: The US, ground floor is synonymous with first floor , leading to differing numberings of floors, depending on region – even between different national varieties of English. The words storey and floor normally exclude levels of the building that are not covered by a roof , such as the terrace on the rooftops of many buildings. Nevertheless, a flat roof on a building is counted as a floor in other languages, for instance dakvloer in Dutch , literally "roof-floor", simply counted one level up from

9438-456: The United States, the first floor and ground floor are usually equivalent, being at ground level, and may also be called the "lobby" or "main floor" to indicate the entrance to the building. The storey just above it is the second floor, and so on. The English-speaking parts of Canada generally follow the American convention, although Canada has kept the Commonwealth spelling "storey". In Quebec ,

9581-509: The Willis Tower was being marketed at a price of $ 1.5 billion. The same month, the Blackstone Group purchased the tower for a reported $ 1.3 billion, the highest price ever paid for a property in the U.S. outside of New York City. Blackstone announced a $ 500 million renovation in January 2017, which would include the construction of the Catalog, a six-story commercial complex, replacing

9724-532: The annex contains an artwork by Olafur Eliasson, entitled Atmospheric wave wall . The work, measuring 30 by 60 feet (9.1 by 18.3 m) across, comprises almost 2,000 blue-and-green steel tiles, which are decorated with hexagonal motifs. The wall is backlit at night. The interior includes 74,000 short tons (66,000 long tons; 67,000 t) of steel, 4 million pounds (1.8 kt) of aluminum, and 101 acres (4,400,000 sq ft; 410,000 m) of concrete flooring. The building contains diagonal columns only on

9867-406: The building as nine square " tubes ", clustered in a 3×3 matrix forming a square base with 225-foot (69 m) sides. The building's rentable area is 3,810,000 sq ft (354,000 m). The structure was intended to accommodate 16,500 employees. Each of the "tubes" is a column-free module measuring 75 by 75 feet (23 by 23 m), which set back at different stories. There are setbacks at

10010-416: The building as nine square " tubes ", clustered in a 3×3 matrix; seven of the tubes set back at upper floors. 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. The facade is made of anodized aluminum and black glass. The base of the building contains a retail complex known as the Catalog. The lower half of

10153-476: The building was just 1 foot (0.30 m) taller. Plans for the tower were announced on July 27, 1970. The 1,450-foot-tall (440 m) building would contain 109 stories as measured from Wacker Drive and 110 stories as measured from Franklin Street. This would make Sears's new tower the tallest in the world, as measured by roof height, although New York City's under-construction World Trade Center Twin Towers would have

10296-447: The building's largest tenant at this time, Ernst & Young , moved to North Wacker Drive in early 2009. In May 2020, heavy rains caused three of the basement levels to flood, knocking out power to the building. This also resulted in many TV and radio stations going off the air. The Willis Tower was designed by architect Bruce Graham and structural engineer Fazlur Rahman Khan of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. Graham and Khan designed

10439-493: The building) and a "ground floor" below it. This typically happens when both floors have street-level entrances, as is often the case for hillside buildings with walkout basements . In the UK, the lower of these floors would be called the "lower ground floor", while the upper would be called either the "upper ground floor" or simply the "ground floor". Multi-storey car parks which have a staggered arrangement of parking levels sometimes use

10582-401: The building, as well as a complete sprinkler system serving all floors. Neither of these features had previously been used in a structure in Chicago. Even though regulations did not require a fire sprinkler system, the building was equipped with one from the beginning. There are around 40,000 sprinkler heads in the building, installed at a cost of $ 4 million. When it was completed, the Sears Tower

10725-418: The building, there was originally a 80,000-square-foot (7,400 m) plaza made of pink granite. In the late 2010s, a three-level wing was built along the western and southern sides of the tower replacing the plaza. The roof garden above the annex spans 30,000 square feet (2,800 m). The annex contains a facade of black steel and aluminum, similar to in the original building. The Jackson Boulevard facade of

10868-485: The character " 唐 " maybe added before the number to emphasize it refers to the Chinese style of numbering, e.g. " 唐三樓 " (literally "Chinese 3 floor"), or the character " 字 " added after the number to refer to the British style of numbering as shown in an elevator, e.g. 2 字樓 (literally "2 digit floor", floor with number 2), while in writing in Chinese, Chinese numerals are used for Chinese style numbering, and Arabic numerals are used for British style numbering. In Hawaii,

11011-495: The city budget. Government priorities and activities are established in a budget ordinance usually adopted each November. Generally speaking, the mayor and city departments comprise the executive branch of the city government, and the city council comprises the legislative branch . However, the mayor does have some formal legislative functions such as being the presiding officer of the council and being able to break tie votes, and informally has dominated legislative activity since

11154-420: The difference from the original scheme, reference is frequently made to storeys rather than floors, where the third (3rd) floor becomes either the fourth (4th) storey/level (storey/level 4). Many buildings continue to label storeys or levels rather than floors. However, in the absence of clear official distinction between the terms, the meaning of "floors" and "levels" have become interchangeable with "storey"; this

11297-575: The entrance, manufactured by the Poblocki Sign Company and installed in 2010, was relocated to Elmhurst, Illinois . A 40,000-square-foot (3,700 m) private club on the 66th and 67th stories opened in June 2018. The club included a restaurant named Craftsman and a lounge named Frame, both of which exclusively served the tower's tenants, as well as a public restaurant known as the East Room. That September, Urbanspace announced that it would operate

11440-467: The first floor ; the storey above it therefore counts as the second floor . In the other system, used in the majority of European countries, floor at ground level is called the "ground floor", frequently having no number (or "0"); the next floor up is assigned the number 1 and is the first floor (first elevation ), the first basement level gets '−1', and so on. In both systems, the numbering of higher floors continues sequentially as one goes up, as shown in

11583-581: The first six floors as A, L, MM, C, H and 1 (for "Arcade", "Lobby", "Main Mezzanine", "Convention", "Health Club" and "1st floor"). The North Carolina Museum of Art , whose entrance is on the third floor up, has the floors lettered C, B, A (the main floor) and O (for "Office"). The Festival Walk mall in Hong Kong has floors labelled LG2 and LG1 ("Lower Ground 2" and "1"), G ("Ground") and UG ("Upper Ground"). In The Landmark Annex of TriNoma , DSn (n=floor) denotes

11726-444: The floor at ground level. European scheme: In many Latin American countries (including Argentina, Mexico, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela) the ground floor is called planta baja and the next floor is primer piso . In Brazil the ground floor is called térreo and the next floor is primeiro andar . In other countries, including Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, the ground floor is called primer piso (first floor). If planta baja

11869-415: The floor below that being two meters below ground. This was done partly for aesthetics, and partly to allow access between the lower level and the street without going through the main floor. In this situation, the lower level is called Lower Ground, the main floor is called Upper Ground, and floors above it are numbered serially from 1. Sometimes, floor number 1 may be the lowest basement level; in that case

12012-430: The floor label of the department store area. In modern buildings, especially large ones, room numbers are usually tied to the floor numbers, so that one can figure out the latter from the former. Typically one uses the floor number with one or two extra digits appended to identify the room within the floor. For example, room 215 could be the 15th room of floor 2 (or 5th room of floor 21), but to avoid this confusion one dot

12155-459: The floor number that it covers. A two-storey house or home extension is sometimes referred to as double-storey in the UK, while one storey is referred to as single-storey . Houses commonly have only one or two floors, although three- and four-storey houses also exist. Buildings are often classified as low-rise , mid-rise and high-rise according to how many levels they contain, but these categories are not well-defined. A single-storey house

12298-633: The following table: Each scheme has further variations depending on how one refers to the ground floor and the subterranean levels. The existence of two incompatible conventions is a common source of confusion in international communication. However, in all English-speaking countries, the storeys in a building are counted in the same way: a "seven-storey building" is unambiguous, although the top floor would be called "6th floor" in Britain and "7th floor" in America. This contrasts, for example, with French usage, where

12441-399: The fresh-air intake openings in that section, discharging smoke outdoors. Fifteen above-ground stories, as well as three of the basement levels, contain mechanical equipment. Above the Skydeck on the 103rd floor is a seven-story mechanical penthouse. The Sears Tower was planned with 103 elevators, including 14 double-deck elevators . The office stories are served by 97 elevator cabs; due to

12584-428: The ground floor ( parter ) and S for basement ( suterena ). Elevators installed since 1990 have 0 for parter and −1, −2 etc. for underground floors. In countries using the North American system, where "floor 1" is the same as "ground floor", the corresponding button may be marked either with 1 or with a letter, as in the European scheme. In either case, the next button will be labelled 2. In buildings that have both

12727-476: The ground floor button is marked with a letter, some digital position indicators may show 0 when the elevator is on that floor. If the building also contains floors below ground, negative numbers are common. This then gives a conventional numbering sequence −2, −1, 0, 1, 2, 3, ... In Spain and other countries whose official language is Spanish or Portuguese, the ground floor is usually marked PB ( planta baja , planta baixa , etc.), and in buildings where these exist,

12870-399: The ground floor may be numbered 2 or higher. Sometimes two connected buildings (such as a store and its car park) have incongruent floor numberings, due to sloping terrain or different ceiling heights. To avoid this, shopping centers may call the main floors by names such as Upper Mall, Lower Mall, Lower Ground, with the parking floors being numbered P n . In some instances, buildings may omit

13013-415: The ground floor, which is called tầng 1 . Meanwhile, in southern Vietnam, trệt refers to the ground floor and lầu refers to any floor above it, starting at lầu 1 directly above the ground floor. A national standard, TCVN  6003-1:2012 ( ISO 4157 -1:1998), requires architectural drawings to follow the northern scheme. It also refers to a crawl space as tầng 0 . However,

13156-619: The higher floors may be explicitly qualified as being above the ground level, such as in Slovenian prvo nadstropje (literally "first floor above ceiling (of the ground storey)"). In many countries in Europe, the second storey is called the "first floor", for being the first elevation. Besides Europe, this scheme is mostly used in some large Latin American countries (including Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay), and British Commonwealth nations (except Singapore and Canada ). In Spain,

13299-462: The holder of the mortgage note; the loan would mature in 2005. In 1990, the law firm of Keck, Mahin & Cate decided to move into a development that would become 77 West Wacker Drive , rebuffing Sears' attempts to entice the firm to stay. Just two years later, Sears began moving its own offices out of the building to a new campus in Hoffman Estates, Illinois , which was completed in 1995. As

13442-547: The late 19th century. On the other hand, the council has oversight authority over city departments. The city treasurer and city clerk are the only other directly elected positions in the city government, and are independent from the mayor's office and the council. The below city departments and agencies operate as part of the executive branch, under the Office of the Mayor: Other city-level government bodies include: Chicago

13585-496: The letters corresponding to the ground floor are R/C ( rés-do-chão ) or simply R. For example, in the Polish language there is a clear distinction: the word parter means ground floor and piętro means a floor above the parter , usually with an ordinal: 1st piętro , 2nd piętro etc. Therefore, a parter is the zeroth piętro . Older elevators in Poland have button marked P for

13728-476: The level above ground level (the mezzanine ) is sometimes called entresuelo ( entresòl in Catalan, etc., which literally means "interfloor"), and elevators may skip it. When the next level is different from the others, usually with higher ceiling and better decorations, then it is called principal (main floor) . This is because before elevators the apartments in the floor that required less stairs to reach

13871-414: The lobby of the Willis Tower. The commercial complex at the building's lowest stories is known as the Catalog, a reference to Sears' mail-order catalogs . The six-story complex includes numerous restaurants. It extends into three of the building's basement levels, as well as the three-story annex to the south and west of the tower. The roof of the annex includes a curved skylight with 240 glass panes, and

14014-464: The lobby to the Skydeck on the 103rd floor. As of 2018, the elevators carried 5.8 million passengers per year. Six of the elevators are used for freight. One of the freight elevators served all stories, traveling to a height of 1,440 feet (440 m). During a fire or another emergency, this elevator would be reserved for the Chicago Fire Department . Other elevators would be controlled from

14157-418: The lower floors. At the time, 6,500 Sears employees occupied more than half of the building, taking up the lowest 48 stories. The remainder of the tower was occupied by 5,500 employees from about 70 companies. As part of the project, the main entrance was covered with a four-story glass dome, and the first four stories were converted into a shopping atrium. In addition, a visitor center for the building's Skydeck

14300-408: The lower half of the building. The company wanted to earn at least $ 1 billion from the sale of the Sears Tower, so it offered multiple concessions to potential buyers, including a guarantee that Sears would continue to pay rent on the lower half of the building until tenants were found for these stories. Four large firms were negotiating to buy the tower by July 1989. The company had difficulties finding

14443-551: The lower one having the suffix "A" and the upper having the suffix "B", like "1A", "1B", "2A", "2B", etc. Elevators in split-level buildings normally stop at either the lower or upper level, and the levels in elevators may be named just "1", "2", etc. Elevator buttons may also be labelled according to their main function. In English-speaking countries, besides the common L for "Lobby", one may find P for " Platform " (in train stations), "Pool" or " Parking " (and P1, P2, P3, P n for multiple parking floors), S for "Skyway" or "Street" (ST

14586-407: The lowest five floors. By late 1971, Chicagoland residents and broadcasters had raised concerns that the new Sears Tower would disrupt television broadcasts. According to one estimate, the building would obstruct television signals for 15 percent of Chicagoans and cause "double images" for another 20 percent, primarily affecting communities to the northwest and southeast. The same year, officials of

14729-448: The maturation of the mortgage approached, Sears renegotiated the loan in 1994. The negotiations resulted in an agreement where Sears would no longer be liable for the $ 850 million loan, although it would only nominally own the building, while AEW and MetLife effectively had total control. As part of the 1994 agreement, AEW and MetLife would be able to take official ownership of the building in 2003. In 1997, Toronto-based TrizecHahn , at

14872-410: The northern section of the annex's roof is supported by black columns that resemble those in the original tower. The Catalog also contains decorative details, such as handrails and staircase landings, which are inspired by elements of Chicago's "built environment". The third story of the Catalog contains a 30,000-square-foot coworking space operated by Convene. The Willis Tower observation deck, called

15015-478: The numbers precede the word "floor", and are cardinals rather than ordinals , so they would translate literally as "1 floor (1F), 2 floor (2F)" (etc.), rather than "1st floor, 2nd floor", or "floor 1, floor 2". In Singapore, the British system of numbering originally prevailed. This was replaced in March 1983 with the North American scheme to create a simplified and consistent standard of numbering storeys. To emphasize

15158-414: The observation deck, above the tower's underground parking garage. According to the tower's owners, the second building was considered in the original design. The plan was eventually cancelled as city zoning did not permit construction of such a tall building in that location. In February 2009, the owners announced they were considering a plan to paint the structure silver, an idea that was later abandoned. It

15301-478: The ones beneath them (e.g., the Willis Tower ). In English the principal floor or main floor of a house is the floor that contains the chief apartments ; it is usually the ground floor, or the floor above. In Italy the main floor of a home was traditionally above the ground level and was called the piano nobile ("noble floor"). The attic or loft is a storey just below the roof of the building; its ceiling

15444-424: The part of the building's architect or owners. An arrangement often found in high rise public housing blocks , particularly those built in the United Kingdom during the 1960s and 1970s, is that elevators would only call at half the total number of floors, or at an intermediate level between a pair of floors; for example an elevator of a 24-storey building would only stop at 12 levels, with staircases used to access

15587-550: The plan. On May 17, 1972, Judge LaVerne Dickson, Chief of the Lake County Circuit Court , dismissed the suit, saying, "I find nothing that gives television viewers the right to reception without interference." By then, the building had reached the 58th story. The Lake County attorney appealed to the Illinois Supreme Court . In his decision on June 12, Judge Charles R. Barrett contended the plaintiffs did not have

15730-442: The presence of the double-deck elevators, these occupy 83 shafts. As designed, one bank of single-deck elevators connected the lobby to the lowest 28 stories. Banks of double-deck elevators traveled to "sky lobbies" at the 33rd/34th and 66th/67th floors, where passengers could transfer to local elevators. The 34th through 103rd stories were served by local elevators that operated from the sky lobbies. Two elevators also ran directly from

15873-480: The remainder of the steelwork would be difficult to construct because of high winds at higher altitudes. Local television stations WTTW and WLS-TV were planning to install temporary broadcast antennas atop the tower when the steel frame was completed. The tower's superstructure had reached the 100th floor in February 1973, at which point it was taller than the Empire State Building in New York City. The building

16016-560: The site could theoretically accommodate a 300-story building with 13.5 million square feet (1,250,000 m). In practice, most potential tenants did not want excessively high offices. Additionally, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) restricted the height of structures in the area to protect air traffic. FAA officials publicly denied that they had imposed a height limit; however, the area's minimum safe altitude would need to be raised by 1,000 feet (300 m) if

16159-707: The site from east to west. Attorneys from the Arnstein firm, headed by Andrew Adsit, began buying the properties parcel by parcel. Sears purchased 15 buildings from 100 owners and paid the government of Chicago $ 2.7 million (equivalent to $ 21.2 million in 2023) for the block of Quincy Street that was to be closed down. Sears executives estimated that their new building would need about 4.2 million square feet (390,000 m), split into 70 stories with 60,000 square feet (5,600 m) each or 60 stories with 70,000 square feet (6,500 m) each. Sears commissioned architecture firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) to design

16302-531: The southern entrance on Jackson Boulevard. The Wacker Drive lobby contains In the Heart of this Infinite Particle of Galactic Dust , a 2019 artwork by Jacob Hashimoto. It consists of over 7,000 rice-paper and resin disks that are hung from the ceiling. To honor Khan's contributions to skyscraper engineering design, the Structural Engineers Association of Illinois also commissioned a sculpture of him for

16445-416: The space in the building was occupied; Sears had leased the upper stories to tenants such as Goldman Sachs , Northwest Industries , and Schiff Hardin . A mobile sculpture by Alexander Calder was dedicated in the lobby in October 1974. Sears' optimistic growth projections were not realized; instead, in late 1974, the company fired 500 workers, about seven percent of the 7,000 Sears employees that worked in

16588-402: The stops en route. Sometimes, two elevators are divided so that all floors are served, but one elevator only serves odd floors and the other even, which would often be less efficient for passengers, but cheaper to install because the group control of elevators was more complex than single control. A few buildings in the United States and Canada have both a "first floor" (usually the main floor of

16731-422: The street below. The boxes, which can accommodate 5 short tons (4.5 metric tons), opened to the public on July 2, 2009. On May 29, 2014, the laminated glass flooring of one of the boxes cracked while visitors were inside, but there were no injuries. The flooring of the same box cracked again on June 12, 2019. In May 2022 a fifth glass ledge opened on the west facade overlooking South Wacker Drive. When completed,

16874-510: The time the lessee of the CN Tower , acquired AEW's holdings in the building for $ 110 million, assuming $ 4 million in liabilities and a $ 734 million mortgage. Trizec had projected that the Sears Tower would quickly reach a value of $ 1 billion. These projections were not met, with the tower facing the same vacancy and other problems it saw under Sears, although Trizec made somewhat successful efforts to attract new tenants. Following

17017-450: The time, although the Willis Tower was nearly 85 percent leased, the number of tenants and visitors entering the building had decreased significantly since 2019, in part because of the COVID-19 pandemic in Chicago . In April 2023, The New York Times reported that Blackstone had written down the value of its investment in the tower by $ 119 million. In June 2006, seven men were arrested by

17160-507: The top in about 60 seconds, allowing occupants to feel the change in pressure as they ascend. Some 1.7 million tourists visit annually as of 2018. There is also an event venue on the 99th floor. In January 2009, a major renovation of the Skydeck began, including the installation of retractable glass balconies which extend approximately 4 feet (1.2 m) from the facade of the 103rd floor, overlooking South Wacker Drive. The all-glass boxes, informally dubbed "The Ledge", allow visitors to see

17303-412: The tower during the weekend of September 9, 1973. Flashing beacons on the building's roof, the first to be installed at any building in Chicago, were activated the same month. Upon the tower's opening, broadcasters at the John Hancock Center , Chicago's second-tallest building, had to decide whether to relocate to the Sears Tower. Two television stations decided to relocate. Six other stations remained at

17446-499: The tower in an unrelated incident four days later. Work was halted again that June due to a labor strike, and Sears began moving furniture into the building that month. The construction cost was about US$ 150 million, (equivalent to $ 1.03 billion in 2023). Despite the size of the project, Sears executives said the building could not accommodate Sears' annual shareholder meetings, and the company continued to rent space in other structures. The first Sears employees began moving into

17589-465: The tower was originally occupied by retail company Sears , which had its headquarters there until 1994, while the upper stories were rented out. 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 . Local area residents still refer to the building by its old name. As of April 2018, the building's largest tenant

17732-583: The tower's roof, and the company offered to spend $ 5 million (equivalent to $ 36.4 million in 2023) to help relocate broadcast stations to the Sears Tower. The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit upheld the FCC's decision in September, and the United States Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of the Seventh Circuit's decision that November. In November 1972, the Sears Tower became Chicago's tallest building, surpassing

17875-510: The tower. SOM was also the lead structural engineer, and Jaros, Baum & Bolles provided MEP engineering. Sears planned to move its merchandise group into the building initially, renting out the remaining space to other tenants until needed. Sears executives were accustomed to large floor areas of at least 100,000 square feet (9,300 m), but SOM architects raised concerns that the large floors would be unattractive to smaller tenants. A subsequent proposal called for two buildings connected by

18018-410: The tower. Competition beyond its traditional rivals such as Montgomery Ward arose from emerging retail giants including Kmart , Kohl's , and Walmart . As a result of a surplus of office space that emerged in the 1980s, the tower did not draw as many tenants as projected and so stood half-vacant for a decade. In February 1984, Sears announced that it would renovate the building to attract visitors to

18161-481: The two stories immediately below each of the setbacks, thus reducing shear stress. The interior of the building could not contain diagonal beams, since these would have obstructed the connections between each of the "tubes". Therefore, the columns and the horizontal beams on each story are connected by rigid joints. The superstructure was designed to withstand wind gusts of 130 miles per hour (210 km/h), which on average would occur once every hundred years. According to

18304-434: The upper stories. The firm of Saphier, Lerner, Schindler was responsible for determining Sears's space requirements and designing furniture for the company. It conducted a year-long study to determine how 16 of the company's departments should be laid out within the building. As Sears continued to offer optimistic growth projections, the height of the proposed tower also increased. Under Chicago's relatively lax zoning laws,

18447-420: The village of Skokie , northwest of Chicago, threatened to request an injunction to prevent further construction. In response to these concerns, Sears started researching methods to reduce the tower's effect on broadcast signals. Variety magazine stated that the Sears Tower did not interfere with broadcasts on its own, since several shorter towers in the Loop also interfered with broadcast signals. Nonetheless,

18590-496: The western edge of Chicago's Loop . Sears asked its outside counsel, Arnstein, Gluck, Weitzenfeld & Minow (now known as Saul Ewing LLP ) to suggest a location. The firm consulted with local and federal authorities and the applicable law, then offered Sears two options. The first option was the Goose Island area northwest of the Loop, but Sears's vice president of real estate, Matthew J. Stacom, rejected this proposal. The other

18733-448: The word are storeys (UK, CAN) and stories (US). The terms floor , level , or deck are used in similar ways (i.e. "the 16th floor "), but to refer to buildings it is more usual to speak of a "16- storey building". The floor at ground or street level is called the "ground floor" (i.e. it needs no number; the floor below it is called "basement", and the floor above it is called "first") in many regions. However, in some regions, like

18876-479: The world's current tallest building, the Burj Khalifa . In February 1982, two television antennas were added to the structure, increasing its total height to 1,707 feet (520.3 m). The western antenna was later extended, bringing the overall height to 1,729 feet (527 m) on June 5, 2000, to improve reception of local NBC station WMAQ-TV . The perimeter of the Willis Tower contains columns that are spaced 15 feet (4.6 m) apart on their centers. The facade

19019-419: The world, elevator buttons for storeys above the ground level are usually marked with the corresponding numbers. In many countries, modern elevators also have Braille numbers—often mandated by law. In countries using the European system, the ground floor is either marked 0, or with the initial letter of the local word for ground floor (G, E, etc.), successive floors are then marked 1, 2, etc. However, even when

19162-683: Was topped out on May 3, 1973. The day before the event, the Chicago Tribune 's editorial board wrote: "Move aside, New York. After tomorrow, when schoolchildren dream of big buildings, they'll no longer think of you and the Empire State Building and the World Trade Center." The frame was still not technically complete, as three to four stories remained to be built. One week after the ceremony, four workers died after an elevator shaft caught fire. A fifth worker died after falling from

19305-412: Was $ 840 million, with $ 825 million held in a mortgage. Two years later, in February 2007, the Sears Tower's owners obtained a $ 780 million loan from UBS . At the time, UBS valued the tower at $ 1.2 billion. Since 2007, the owners had considered plans for the construction of a hotel on the north side of Jackson Boulevard, between Wacker Drive and Franklin Street, close to the entrance of

19448-491: Was a plaza on the south side of the building, sloping upward toward Franklin Street to the east. The Franklin Street side of the building was 6 feet (1.8 m) lower than the Wacker Drive entrance, so the entrances on Franklin Street were actually below the plaza, leading to the building's lower mezzanine. Below ground level are three basement levels with a total area of 400,000 square feet (37,000 m). The basements included

19591-428: 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. Though the site was more centrally located, it was also relatively small, with about 55,000 square feet (5,100 m). Bernard Feinberg, Albert I. Rubenstein, and Philip Teinowitz had assembled that site over the previous five years, but they had failed to acquire

19734-470: Was constructed. The renovations, designed by SOM, were completed in mid-1985. Paul Gapp of the Chicago Tribune wrote that SOM had "scaled the new entrance skillfully, in keeping with the main building's height" and that the new atrium "relieves the formerly cramped feeling from just inside the Franklin entrance". Sears announced in 1988 that it would sell the tower and relocate its merchandising division from

19877-431: Was excavating a trench around the site, measuring 60 feet (18 m) deep and 20 by 216 feet (6.1 by 65.8 m) across. The contractors then built a slurry wall within the trench, made of concrete and reinforced steel. Workers used steel bracing to prevent the slurry wall from collapsing inward, then used caissons to drill 201 holes into the ground. They also rerouted a sewer that had run underneath Quincy Street, which

20020-411: Was heated electrically, unlike older structures that used gas heating. It included 145,000 light fixtures and a cooling system capable of 17,000 tons of refrigeration. Furthermore, the tower contained fire-suppression and communications systems for emergency use, which were powered by diesel generators. If there was a fire in one section of the building, the building's smoke-detection system would close off

20163-405: Was hoped that a new, silver, paint-job would "rebrand" the building and highlight its advances in energy efficiency for an estimated cost of $ 50 million. Although Sears' naming rights expired in 2003, the building continued to be called the Sears Tower for several years, despite multiple changes in ownership. In March 2009, London-based insurance broker Willis Group Holdings agreed to lease

20306-445: Was the most expensive and usually also the most luxurious one. In those cases the "first floor" can therefore be two or three levels above ground level. In Italy, in the ancient palaces the first floor is called piano nobile ("noble floor"), since the noble owners of the palace lived there. In France, there are two distinct names for storeys at ground level, depending on whether it faces the street (called rez-de-chaussée , ) or

20449-453: Was to be closed permanently as part of the tower's construction. The Diesel Construction Company was hired as the Sears Tower's general contractor . Sears, Roebuck & Co. chairman Gordon M. Metcalf installed the building's first steel beam at a ceremony on June 7, 1971. The project employed 2,000 workers. To accelerate the building's construction, a concrete plant was built in the building's basement, allowing workers to pour one-third of

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