![161, The New Chicago Post Office, dedicated February 15, 1933 (NBY 417398)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/86/161%2C_The_New_Chicago_Post_Office%2C_dedicated_February_15%2C_1933_%28NBY_417398%29.jpg)
The Old Chicago Main Post Office is a nine-story-tall building in
downtown
''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in North America by English speakers to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business distric ...
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name ...
. The original building was designed by
Graham, Anderson, Probst & White
Graham, Anderson, Probst & White (GAP&W) was a Chicago architectural firm that was founded in 1912 as Graham, Burnham & Co. This firm was the successor to D. H. Burnham & Co. through Daniel Burnham's surviving partner, Ernest R. Graham, and Burnh ...
and built in 1921, but the structure was expanded greatly in 1932 in order to serve Chicago's great volume of postal business, swollen by the mail-order businesses of
Montgomery Ward
Montgomery Ward is the name of two successive U.S. retail corporations. The original Montgomery Ward & Co. was a world-pioneering mail-order business and later also a leading department store chain that operated between 1872 and 2001. The curren ...
(the largest retailer in the United States) and of
Sears
Sears, Roebuck and Co. ( ), commonly known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald, with what began a ...
(its competitor).
The Old Post Office is home to many corporate offices including
Walgreens
Walgreen Company, d/b/a Walgreens, is an American company that operates the second-largest pharmacy store chain in the United States behind CVS Health. It specializes in filling prescriptions, health and wellness products, health information, an ...
,
Ferrara Candy Company
The Ferrara Candy Company is an American candy manufacturer, based in Chicago, Illinois, and owned by the Ferrero Group.
The company was formed from a 2012 merger of the Illinois-based Ferrara Pan Candy Company and Minnesota-based Farley's & Sa ...
,
PepsiCo
PepsiCo, Inc. is an American multinational food, snack, and beverage corporation headquartered in Harrison, New York, in the hamlet of Purchase. PepsiCo's business encompasses all aspects of the food and beverage market. It oversees the manuf ...
,
Cisco Systems
Cisco Systems, Inc., commonly known as Cisco, is an American-based multinational corporation, multinational digital communications technology conglomerate (company), conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develo ...
,
Uber
Uber Technologies, Inc. (Uber), based in San Francisco, provides mobility as a service, ride-hailing (allowing users to book a car and driver to transport them in a way similar to a taxi), food delivery (Uber Eats and Postmates), package ...
,
CBOE,
Home Chef
Home Chef is a Chicago, Illinois-based meal kit and food delivery company that delivers pre-portioned ingredients and recipes to subscribers weekly in the United States. According to the company it delivers three million meals monthly to its subsc ...
, and more.
History
The original 1922 structure was a brick-sided mail terminal building, sited just east of the main building that spans the
Eisenhower Expressway
Interstate 290 (I-290) is an auxiliary Interstate Highway that runs westward from the Chicago Loop. The portion of I-290 from I-294 to its east end is officially called the Dwight D. Eisenhower Expressway. In short form, it is known as "the ...
as it turns into
Ida B. Wells Drive. Major expansion in 1932 added a total of nine floors for more than , or 2.5 million square feet (230,000 m²), of floorspace. Its footprint, as initially designed, would have blocked the proposed Congress Parkway extension; as a compromise, a hole for the Parkway was reserved in the base of the Post Office and utilized twenty years later. Competitors
Montgomery Ward
Montgomery Ward is the name of two successive U.S. retail corporations. The original Montgomery Ward & Co. was a world-pioneering mail-order business and later also a leading department store chain that operated between 1872 and 2001. The curren ...
and
Sears
Sears, Roebuck and Co. ( ), commonly known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald, with what began a ...
combined to make Chicago "the nation's mail-order capital".
[ (Montgomery Ward, which became the largest retailer in the United States in the late 1930s, was eventually passed by Sears, and then was purchased and merged.) In 1966 the Main Chicago Post Office came to a halt when a logjam of 10 million pieces of mail clogged the system for nearly a week. With Chicago rated worst in postal deliveries, a new Main Post Office to be located right across Harrison Street was proposed. In 1997, the old building was vacated in favor of the new, modernized facility. The building was listed on the ]National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...
in 2001.
A February 2006 report by the General Accounting Office
The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) is a legislative branch government agency that provides auditing, evaluative, and investigative services for the United States Congress. It is the supreme audit institution of the federal gover ...
stated that it cost the government $2 million a year to maintain the retired building. On June 9, 2009, the ''Chicago Sun-Times
The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has the second largest circulation among Chicago newspapers, after the ''Chicago T ...
'' reported that the postal service was placing the post office on the auction block. Held on August 27 and conducted by Rick Levin & Associates Inc., the auction raised $40 million, which was well over the opening bid of $300,000. The buyer was reported to be English real estate developer Bill Davies. While Davies missed an October 10, 2009 deadline to close the deal, he finally acquired the building on October 21, 2009, paying about $17 million.
Redevelopment plan, 2011–2014
The Old Chicago Main Post Office Redevelopment was an approved project on a lot located along the Chicago River
The Chicago River is a system of rivers and canals with a combined length of that runs through the city of Chicago, including its center (the Chicago Loop). Though not especially long, the river is notable because it is one of the reasons for ...
on the southwest side of Downtown Chicago
''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in North America by English speakers to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business distri ...
, Illinois
Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...
to be constructed in phases over a period of one decade that would have included the renovation of the building as well as residential, retail, entertainment and office space. The plan included several towers, the tallest one being a proposed 120-story mixed use twin tower skyscraper to stand about high to the roof, which would have made it the tallest building in the United States
The world's first skyscraper was built in Chicago in 1885. Since then, the United States has been home to some of the world's tallest skyscrapers. New York City, specifically the borough of Manhattan, notably has the tallest skyline in the cou ...
, over taller than the Willis Tower
The Willis Tower (originally the Sears Tower) is a 108-story, 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), ...
, containing office, residential, and hotel space. It would also have included two 60-story residential towers as well as a 40-story hotel. All the buildings in the development were to be connected via a ground-level complex that would have been built over the Chicago River and the Eisenhower Expressway
Interstate 290 (I-290) is an auxiliary Interstate Highway that runs westward from the Chicago Loop. The portion of I-290 from I-294 to its east end is officially called the Dwight D. Eisenhower Expressway. In short form, it is known as "the ...
. More specifically, it was exactly one year and nine months after acquiring the post office property from the Postal Service when Davies unveiled his plan for the Post Office on July 21, 2011. The proposal, which involved three other properties besides the 14-story Post Office, was broken down into three phases pending the required $3.5 billion in funding:
* Phase 1: Converting the Post Office into a retail complex whose main entrance would be through the Beaux Arts-inspired lobby along Van Buren street, the remaining interior would become a parking garage, and a 40-story hotel on the east side of the building. (Approximate cost: $450 million)
* Phase 2: Building a 60-story hotel west of the Post Office and a 120-story, office, hotel, and residential tower that would be the tallest in North America. (Approximate cost: $2 billion)
* Phase 3: Two residential towers built on the east side of the Chicago River diagonally southeast from the proposed 120-story skyscraper plus a 12,000 space parking garage. (Approximate cost: $1 billion)
The whole $3.5 billion plan was submitted to the Chicago City Council and the Planning Commission for approval the same day it was released to the public. Only funding for Phase 1 had been secured as of July 21, 2011. The proposal was sent to the Chicago City Commission in July 2011 for approval, which was expected to be a several-month process. The project had an estimated cost of $3.5 billion and the potential to create 12,000 jobs. Some critics opposed the proposal, calling it old-fashioned and suburban and an unrealistic pipe dream, as it was largely car oriented (12,000 parking spaces and free parking) with shopping mall style retail. The city voted and approved the plan July 18, 2013.
In spring of 2013, Antunovich Associates, who purchased the site three years ago, created a new proposal on the site featuring a 1000-foot skyscraper (with a 2,000 foot tower in their 2nd phase). Other potential uses include a casino and/or entertainment complex. On June 18, 2014, Bill Davies announced the formation of a $500 million joint venture with Sterling Bay Companies for phase I of the redevelopment. On July 18, Sterling announced a new relationship with J.P. Morgan Asset Management, which gave them access to new financial resources. However, Davies never found sufficient financing. In December 2014, Davies canceled the project and put the post office building up for sale.
After sitting vacant for nearly two decades, the building was bought in 2014 by English real estate developer Bill Davies for $24 million at auction. Davies proposed an ambitious redevelopment plan that was never realized; on May 13, 2016, the building was sold by Davies, who died the next day.
2016 sale and reconstruction
In February 2016, Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel
Rahm Israel Emanuel (; born November 29, 1959) is an American politician and diplomat who is the current United States Ambassador to Japan. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served two terms as the 55th Mayor of Chicago from 2011 ...
pressed for development of the site, threatening to take possession of the building by use of eminent domain
Eminent domain (United States, Philippines), land acquisition (India, Malaysia, Singapore), compulsory purchase/acquisition (Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, United Kingdom), resumption (Hong Kong, Uganda), resumption/compulsory acquisition (Austr ...
. In March, the city's Department of Planning and Development issued an RFP seeking bids due June 10 for redevelopment of the site. Later that week, with announcement of a conditional sale of the building, it turned out that Davies had been in negotiation since May 2015 for sale of the building to 601W, a New York City-based real estate company which owns Chicago's Aon Center and One Prudential Plaza
One Prudential Plaza (formerly known as the Prudential Building) is a 41-story structure in Chicago completed in 1955 as the headquarters for Prudential's Mid-America company. It was the first skyscraper built in Chicago since the Great Depr ...
buildings.
On May 13, 2016, completion of the sale from Davies to 601W was announced by Emanuel. Davies died the next day. Vicky Flores, who ran the Chicago office of Davies' firm, commented: "'It was really weird, the timing. Everything was signed off, and then I heard he had died. It was like he waited until everything was taken care of.'" In a $500 million renovation,[ ]Gensler
Gensler is a global design and architecture firm founded in San Francisco, California, in 1965.
In 2021, Gensler generated $1.235 billion in revenue, the most of any architecture firm in the U.S. As of 2021, Gensler operated offices in 49 citi ...
plans on renovation of the space into office space, with addition of a rooftop
A roof ( : roofs or rooves) is the top covering of a building, including all materials and constructions necessary to support it on the walls of the building or on uprights, providing protection against rain, snow, sunlight, extremes of temper ...
park and a riverwalk. In September 2017 the post office was one of 6 sites in Chicago considered for the new Amazon
Amazon most often refers to:
* Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology
* Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin
* Amazon River, in South America
* Amazon (company), an American multinational technology c ...
" HQ2" location. In September 2019, Uber
Uber Technologies, Inc. (Uber), based in San Francisco, provides mobility as a service, ride-hailing (allowing users to book a car and driver to transport them in a way similar to a taxi), food delivery (Uber Eats and Postmates), package ...
Freight announced it would be based at the site, adding 2,000 jobs.
After extensive renovations undergone by real-estate company 601W, the building opened to office tenants in October 2019. In August 2019, Uber
Uber Technologies, Inc. (Uber), based in San Francisco, provides mobility as a service, ride-hailing (allowing users to book a car and driver to transport them in a way similar to a taxi), food delivery (Uber Eats and Postmates), package ...
signed a 10-year lease to become the building's largest tenant, occupying . Construction on the space to be utilized by Uber will begin in the spring of 2020. The structure will also include new Chicago offices for Walgreens
Walgreen Company, d/b/a Walgreens, is an American company that operates the second-largest pharmacy store chain in the United States behind CVS Health. It specializes in filling prescriptions, health and wellness products, health information, an ...
, occupying and housing 1,800 employees. PepsiCo
PepsiCo, Inc. is an American multinational food, snack, and beverage corporation headquartered in Harrison, New York, in the hamlet of Purchase. PepsiCo's business encompasses all aspects of the food and beverage market. It oversees the manuf ...
will relocate its Chicago office of 1,300 employees and occupy , while the Ferrara Candy Company
The Ferrara Candy Company is an American candy manufacturer, based in Chicago, Illinois, and owned by the Ferrero Group.
The company was formed from a 2012 merger of the Illinois-based Ferrara Pan Candy Company and Minnesota-based Farley's & Sa ...
announced that it would relocate its headquarters to the Post Office building in 2019, occupying and bringing nearly 400 jobs. The Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago will also be a tenant.
In popular culture
The building was used in the filming of ''Batman Begins
''Batman Begins'' is a 2005 superhero film directed by Christopher Nolan and written by Nolan and David S. Goyer. The film is based on the DC Comics character Batman, it stars Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne / Batman, with Michael Caine, Liam ...
'' in 2004, and ''The Dark Knight
''The Dark Knight'' is a 2008 superhero film directed by Christopher Nolan from a screenplay he co-wrote with his brother Jonathan. Based on the DC Comics superhero, Batman, it is the sequel to ''Batman Begins'' (2005) and the second insta ...
'' in April 2007.
The building is seen from above in the opening credits of '' Candyman''. In the summer of 2010, Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the main namesake division of Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS). It is the fifth-oldes ...
and Michael Bay
Michael Benjamin Bay (born February 17, 1965) is an American film director and producer. He is best known for making big-budget, high-concept action films characterized by fast cutting, stylistic cinematography and visuals, and extensive use of ...
filmed numerous scenes for '' Transformers: Dark of the Moon'' in and around Chicago. The old Chicago Post Office's east facade was decorated as the "Department of Health and Human Services" where the Autobots were kept by the federal government in the movies. The same interior that was used for filming of the bank heist in ''The Dark Knight
''The Dark Knight'' is a 2008 superhero film directed by Christopher Nolan from a screenplay he co-wrote with his brother Jonathan. Based on the DC Comics superhero, Batman, it is the sequel to ''Batman Begins'' (2005) and the second insta ...
'' was used again for ''Transformers: Dark of the Moon''. There were also some scattered shots from the Post Office interior used throughout the film.
See also
*List of United States post offices
Several United States post offices are individually notable and have operated under the authority of the United States Post Office Department (1792–1971) or of the United States Postal Service (since 1971). Notable U.S. post offices include in ...
References
External links
U.S. Post Office, Chicago
at Emporis
Emporis GmbH was a real estate data mining company that was headquartered in Hamburg, Germany. The company collected data and photographs of buildings worldwide, which were published in an online database from 2000 to September 2022.
On 12 Sept ...
"Biggest Post Office To Be Built In Chicago", August 1931, Popular Science
{{Supertall proposed skyscrapers
Government buildings completed in 1921
Government buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Chicago
Post office buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Illinois
Proposed skyscrapers in the United States
Skyscraper office buildings in Chicago
1921 establishments in Illinois