Sullivan Center (formerly known as the Schlesinger & Mayer Building, Carson Pirie Scott Building, or Carson, Pirie, Scott and Company Store) is a 12-story building at State and Madison streets in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Opened in phases between 1899 and 1907, the building was designed by Louis Sullivan, originally for retail firm Schlesinger & Mayer, and was Sullivan's last large commercial building. For much of the 20th century, it contained part of the flagship store of Carson Pirie Scott (Carson's), which also occupied other properties on the same block. The building is a Chicago Landmark and National Historic Landmark and is part of the Loop Retail Historic District.
Schlesinger & Mayer previously occupied the Bowen Building on the same site and expanded it gradually during the 1880s and early 1890s. They originally commissioned Sullivan in the 1890s to expand the existing building before hiring him to complete a new structure. Sullivan oversaw both the original 1899 building and a 1903 annex. The building was sold in 1904 to H. G. Selfridge & Co., who sold the building to Otto Young and leased it to Carson's. Subsequent additions were completed by D. H. Burnham & Company in 1906–1907 and Holabird & Root in 1961. Carson's occupied the store until 2006, during which it gradually acquired both the building and the site. Following renovations in the late 2000s, it became Sullivan Center, an office complex.
The main elevations of the building's facade on State and Madison streets, are connected by a curved corner. On each elevation, piers divide the facade into bays with wide Chicago windows. The lowest two stories are clad with decorative cast iron, with an entrance at the corner and large windows on either elevation. The windows on the upper stories are framed by white terracotta bands. The foundation includes a mixture of caissons and pilings, while the superstructure consists of cast iron and steel columns, which support terracotta floor slabs. The store's interior layout was arranged to maximize selling space, with open plan spaces between the columns. Sullivan Center was Sullivan's last large major commercial design. It has been praised over the years for its engineering and architecture, despite mixed views of the exterior design details.
Site Sullivan Center, the Carson Pirie Scott Building, is located at 1 South State Street at the southeast corner of East Madison Street in the Loop section of downtown Chicago, Illinois, United States. It is part of a larger complex once operated by Carson, Pirie and Scott (colloquially Carson's), which occupied much of the city block bounded by State Street to the west, Madison Street to the north, Wabash Avenue to the east, and Monroe Street to the south. An alley runs from Madison to Monroe streets. Adjoining the building above Wabash Avenue is the Chicago "L"'s elevated Loop. The Chicago Building and One South Dearborn are immediately across State Street to the west, and the Haskell-Barker-Atwater Buildings and Silversmith Hotel are on the same block to the east.
The intersection of Madison and State streets is the zero-point baseline for the city's address grid system and dates from the original 1830s plat of Chicago. Because of this, both streets were misaligned where they crossed each other; this influenced the design of the Bowen Building, the previous building on the site.
Previous building State Street's commercial strip was leveled during the Chicago Fire of 1871 and then rebuilt. Among the structures built after the fire was the Bowen Building at the southwest corner of State and Madison, designed by William Boyington and completed in 1872. This building originally housed clothing firm Clement, Morton & Co. Clement, Morton originally leased the Bowen Building for five years, but moved to another building in 1875 before the lease had expired. The next occupant, the Wilson Sewing Machine Company, moved into the building in 1876. The third occupant was Schlesinger & Meyer, a dry-goods store, which opened in April 1881. The land itself was acquired by Levi Z. Leiter in 1878 and leased to the building's successive owners under a leasehold agreement.
The Bowen Building originally measured six stories high and across, with the wider frontage on Madison Street. The misalignment of State and Madison streets had created a "prominent projection" at their southeast corner; Boyington took advantage of this by adding a rounded pavilion at the corner. The corner pavilion was topped by a circular dome with dormers, while the rest of the building had a mansard roof. Cornices ran across the facade, splitting it into two tiers of double-height columns and pilasters. Inside, the building had steam heat and elevators, both technologically advanced for the time. Adjoining it were several buildings of different heights.
Development Background The idea for Sullivan Center arose following repeated expansions of the Bowen Building, whose final tenant, Schlesinger & Mayer, was operated by Leopold Schlesinger and David Mayer. Both German immigrants to the US, they had met while working together prior to the Chicago Fire. The company was founded in 1872 and occupied a space covering , Schlesinger in particular had become familiar with the work of Adler & Sullivan, the architectural partnership of Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan, in the 1880s, and he hired them to design his house on Michigan Avenue in 1884. Schlesinger & Mayer quintupled the Bowen Building's area from between 1881 and 1895 by leasing and remodeling space in adjacent buildings.
1881–1895: Early leases and expansions In 1885, Schlesinger & Mayer leased 133–135 State Street immediately south of the Bowen Building, which gave the company a total of . Leiter attempted to evict the firm that year because of a dispute over the ground-lease payments. Schlesinger & Mayer ended up buying the building (but not the land) in 1886, and a judge ruled against Leiter in 1889. Adler & Sullivan were hired in 1890 to replace the Bowen Building's mansard roof and dome with two additional stories. Sullivan was asked to redesign three bays, with the rest to follow if Schlesinger & Mayer liked his work. That February, Schlesinger & Mayer leased two properties south of the existing store, at 137–139 State Street. A boiler plant was added in conjunction with this annex. Two additional buildings at 141–143 State Street were acquired in 1891, increasing the frontage there to . The four State Street properties formed an L-shaped assemblage, as the newly leased lots at 137–143 State extended eastward from State Street, while the two buildings to the north extended only eastward.
After leasing 141–143 State, Schlesinger & Mayer wanted Adler & Sullivan to remodel the State Street buildings as a single structure with a unified facade; sources disagree on whether the enlarged building was to be six or eight stories high. Minimal interior modifications were needed because the floor levels of all four buildings were at the same heights. The renovations would have included an elaborate entrance on State Street, plans for which were announced in 1892. No action was taken for several years, during which Adler and Sullivan dissolved their partnership, forcing Schlesinger & Mayer to pick between the two men. Schlesinger & Mayer ultimately hired Sullivan because of his reputation designing artistic buildings. Frank Lloyd Wright, a onetime draftsman at Adler & Sullivan, later said that most of their clients had instead stayed with Adler.
1896–1897 expansion + Growth of the Schlesinger & Mayer store before 1897 Year Total sq ft Total sq m188132,000188560,0001892120,0001895160,0001897300,000
Schlesinger & Mayer's site on State Street was among the most valuable in Chicago by the early 1890s. One block east, the Union Elevated Railroad (later part of the Chicago "L") was constructing its Loop above Wabash Avenue. Several retailers on State Street had acquired land on Wabash Avenue to cater to the riders who were expected to use the elevated. Other retailers nearby—who, like Schlesinger & Mayer, leased the land under their buildings and had high ground-lease payments—were rebuilding their stores to attract customers.
In May 1896, Schlesinger & Mayer signed a 99-year lease for two lots on Wabash Avenue owned by the Barker family. The next month, the company signed another 99-year lease with Frederick T. Haskell for two adjacent sites to the south, giving it an assemblage at 141–147 Wabash Avenue. Schlesinger & Mayer commissioned Sullivan to design a ten-story steel structure. The company set a $100,000 budget for the building, which was to be connected by a footbridge to its existing State Street buildings. Work on the Barker site at 141–143 Wabash was underway by August 1896, in anticipation of a September opening. The existing four-story structure was to be remodeled, forming the base of the ten-story building, but only the lowest two floors were ultimately renovated. Schlesinger & Mayer also negotiated to lease two stories in an adjacent building at 135–139 Wabash. The Haskell lease at 145–147 Wabash was not finalized until early 1897.
Sullivan expanded 137–143 State to six stories in 1896, following the original early-1890s plans for these sites. This renovation included an elaborate French cafe. After these modifications were completed in 1897, the building measured eight bays wide on State Street and four on Madison Street, in addition to the Wabash Avenue property. Sullivan also designed a pedestrian bridge connecting 141–143 Wabash's second floor to the elevated Loop's brand-new Madison/Wabash station. Schlesinger & Mayer and Union Elevated agreed to the footbridge in May 1897, but just as the bridge was being completed, the city halted work on November 20. Overnight, 200 workers secretly completed the bridge, which opened the next day. The bridge had elaborate metalwork, steel girders, and glass walls and was similar in design to an overpass in Paris, but was later removed. Schlesinger & Mayer leased 145 State Street from Burley & Co. in 1897, adding to the State Street frontage south of the existing lots. This lease did not take effect until May 1900 when the existing tenants moved out.
New building The rest of Schlesinger & Mayer's original plans, including the 10-story building on Wabash Avenue, were never carried out. The new storefront at 141–143 Wabash was the only pre-1898 design that survived the store's redevelopment over the next decade. The Lansing Journal later said that Schlesinger & Mayer's central location had attracted so many customers, "a mammoth new store has become necessary for their business".
+ Development Year Architect Section Refs 1898 Louis SullivanFirst phase: Eastern 3 bays on Madison Street adjoining Bowen Building1903Louis SullivanSecond phase: Main section (western 3 bays on Madison Street, northern 7 bays on State Street) 1906 D. H. Burnham & CompanyThird phase: Southern 5 bays on State Street added to new building
First phase