AMA Plaza (formerly IBM Plaza or IBM Building; also known by its address 330 North Wabash Avenue) is a skyscraper in the River North neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois, United States. It was designed in the International Style by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, with C. F. Murphy as the associate architect, and was the last building Mies designed in Chicago before his death in 1969. The tower is tall with 52 stories and, when completed in 1972, initially housed the Chicago offices of the technology firm IBM. Since 2013, the 2nd through 13th stories have functioned as a hotel called the Langham, Chicago, while the remaining stories continue to be used as offices. The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is designated as a Chicago Landmark.
IBM officials first contacted Mies to design the building in 1966, and the company officially announced plans for the building in June 1968. Work began in February 1969, and the building was formally dedicated on September 20, 1972. After the last vacant offices were leased in 1975, the building remained fully occupied for two decades. IBM downsized its offices in the mid-1990s and sold it in 1996 to the Blackstone Group, which resold it in 1999 to Prime Group Realty. The building's two largest tenants, IBM and Jenner & Block, announced plans to move out during the mid-2000s, and the 2nd through 13th stories were sold off for hotel use in 2008. Following a major renovation of the entire building, Langham Hotels International opened the Langham hotel there in 2013, and the building was renamed that year for the American Medical Association (AMA), a major office tenant. Beacon Capital Partners bought the office stories in 2016 and conducted another renovation.
AMA Plaza is positioned near the northern end of the site, set back from the Chicago River, and is surrounded by an outdoor public plaza. A glass curtain wall, with vertical mullions of anodized aluminum, forms the building's exterior. The lobby's facade is set back behind an arcade of columns, while the upper stories are nearly identical in design. The superstructure is a steel frame, with its interiors divided into rectangular modules. The building was equipped with computer-controlled mechanical systems to increase energy efficiency. The entire ground level is occupied by a lobby, while the second floor (originally the dining room) contains a lobby and restaurant for the hotel. The upper floors were originally open plan offices, though the floors occupied by the hotel have since been subdivided. When AMA Plaza was completed, it received commentary on its design. Both the building and the Langham hotel have received awards, and the building has also been depicted in several works of popular media.
Site AMA Plaza, also known as the IBM Building, is located at 330 North Wabash Avenue in the River North neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois, United States. It was originally alternatively known as One IBM Plaza—a vanity address, since the building's real address was on Wabash Avenue. It is situated on an irregular land lot on the northern bank of the Chicago River's main stem, just north of the Chicago Loop. The site occupies a city block between the Chicago River to the south, State Street and the State Street Bridge to the west, Kinzie Street to the north, and Wabash Avenue and the Wabash Avenue Bridge to the east. The section of Wabash Avenue adjacent to the building deviates from the Chicago street grid, curving slightly westward into the lot.
AMA Plaza is located just north of Chicago's theater district and is also near the Magnificent Mile shopping district on Michigan Avenue. In general, the buildings on adjacent blocks are mid-rise or high-rise buildings, with a mixture of residential and commercial uses. On the block immediately to the west are Marina City and Chicago Varnish Company Building, while to the east is the Trump International Hotel and Tower. Originally, the IBM Building faced the Sun Times Building to the east; that structure was replaced by the Trump Tower in the 2000s. Before the IBM Building was built, the Chicago Sun-Times operated a storage building on the site and owned an easement extending under Wabash Avenue to the basement level of the building. There are railroad tracks under the building, which were used by the Chicago and North Western Railway. There are also several Chicago "L" stations nearby, including State/Lake station across the Chicago River to the south and Grand station on State Street three blocks to the north.
The building is positioned near the northern end of the site, away from the Chicago River, preserving eastward views from Marina City. There is an outdoor public plaza surrounding AMA Plaza, which takes up half of the lot, extending south to the Chicago River shoreline. Due to space constraints, the sections of the plaza along the building's western and eastern facades is only wide. Because the plaza is slightly above State Street, there is a granite retaining wall on that street and stairs descending to sidewalk level at the northwest and southwest corners. The sections of the plaza along the northern and southern facades both have planting beds and granite benches, with more benches and plantings to the south than to the north. The plaza has a group of sculptures by the Taiwanese artist Ju Ming, known as The Gentlemen. It also has approximately 40 replicas of the Barcelona chairs that were designed by the building's architect, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. At the south end of the plaza is an ivy-covered wall descending to the river.
History The building's first namesake, IBM, was established in the 1880s. It had maintained a Chicago office since either 1914 or 1916, initially employing a dozen people there. By the 1960s, IBM had more than 4,000 employees in Chicago alone, out of 240,000 worldwide. The company contemplated constructing a 40-to-50-story structure to host 2,000 of its staff, as well as other companies.
Development
Planning IBM officials first contacted Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in 1966, hiring him to design them a new Chicago headquarters. That November, IBM obtained an option on a site along the Chicago River's northern bank, between Wabash Avenue and State Street, from the Chicago Sun-Times. When IBM finally bought the site, it agreed to provide space for a Sun-Times storage facility. The building was tentatively planned to cost $50 million. Upon being hired, Mies was driven to the site to inspect it. The plot, which resembled a boomerang in shape, was so awkwardly positioned that Mies reportedly asked, "Where's the site?"
IBM announced in June 1968 that it would construct a 52-story building on the site and that it had hired Mies and C. F. Murphy to design the structure. The building was to contain , and IBM planned to occupy about half this space. The skyscraper itself would cover half the lot and would be surrounded by a plaza. It was to be the third-tallest building in Chicago, after the John Hancock Center and the First National Tower, and was IBM's largest office building to date. IBM also acquired part of the adjacent section of Wabash Avenue, which protruded into the site, and closed off that portion of Wabash Avenue. The company decided to position the new building away from the Chicago River, allowing a large public plaza to be built on the riverfront, while enabling views of Lake Michigan to the east. Since the site was zoned for mid-rise commercial and industrial development, IBM submitted a rezoning request to the Chicago City Council in August 1968, to permit the construction of an office tower there.
Construction Work officially began in February 1969. IBM gave the general contract to Paschen Contractors, the steel contract to American Bridge Company, and the elevator contract to Otis Elevators. Mies completed his final drawings that July, less than a month before his death at the age of 83. Following Mies's death, Bruno Conterato, an associate with his firm, took over the development. Conterato devised a curtain wall that kept out moisture and provided insulation; this curtain wall cost 35–50% more than a convention curtain wall but was also intended to be much more energy-efficient. Mies's grandson Dirk Lohan, then in his early 30s, also assisted with the design. The IBM Building was one of several major high-rises constructed in Chicago during the late 1960s, along with Marina City, the John Hancock Center, the First National Tower, and the AT&T Building.
To accommodate the IBM Building, workers built an overpass over the railroad tracks and remodeled a bulkhead along the river. Work was briefly delayed in March 1970 due to a labor strike by heavy equipment operators, and further strikes were organized later the same year by delivery-truck drivers and cement masons. The steel superstructure had reached the 12th floor when the truck drivers went on strike in May 1970, and most of the lower-story finishes had been finished by then. During the building's development, in September 1970, U.S. President Richard Nixon visited the site and met with construction workers. Conterato also traveled to Rome, where the travertine marble for the lobby was being quarried, to ensure that the graining on the travertine slabs lined up with each other. The superstructure was finished by the end of the year. The building was nearly completed by mid-1971, and several tenants such as Arthur Young & Co. had already leased space by then. Despite decreased demand for office space in Chicago, real-estate experts anticipated that the building would not have much vacant space because IBM planned to occupy large parts of it.
IBM occupancy
1970s
IBM began relocating over 2,000 staff to the building in October 1971. The structure was formally dedicated on September 20, 1972; a bust of Mies, sculpted by Marino Marini, was dedicated in the building's public plaza the same day. It was one of several skyscrapers finished in Chicago that year, along with 2 Illinois Center and the Mid-Continental Plaza. Scribcor was the building's original manager, hiring and training service employees and security guards, and maintaining a newsletter for tenants. Among the first tenants were Arthur Young & Co., the law firm Jenner & Block, and the record label Mercury Records. Firms with smaller offices were placed on intermediate floors between tenants with larger offices. This allowed larger tenants to expand their offices to adjacent floors when smaller tenants' leases expired, rather than occupying non-contiguous space in the building.
The IBM Building was almost fully leased by July 1973, with up to 80 companies occupying space there as its peak. The building had been planned with only 40 parking spaces, even though it was estimated that the building's tenants needed at least ten times as much parking. As such, IBM drew up plans for a separate parking garage at Wabash Avenue and Kinzie Street; this parking garage, designed by George Schipporeit, was completed in 1974. That same year, IBM offered to donate $175,000 for a public park (later the Chicago Riverwalk) on the southern bank of the Chicago River, directly south of the building. After the last vacant offices were leased in 1975, the building remained fully occupied for the next two decades. The same year, the building was slightly damaged by a bombing, for which a Puerto Rican separatist group, Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional Puertorriqueña, claimed responsibility.