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Originally Posted by marothisu
There's an article from The Real Deal mentioning they also toured existing "vacant" buildings. So there is no guarantee for a new tower if the plans go through, but there's a possibility. Also they mention Fulton Market. I'm not sure if they just don't understand that 655 W Madison is not Fulton Market, or if there's something Chicago Tribune isn't telling us..
One of the benefits they've had in NYC is the fact that there's a lot of space in multiple buildings in the same area as the HQ as well as some others. So people are kind of relocated to other spaces while the main HQ is demolished with a new building built over it. That's not nearly as much the case in Chicago even if they wanted to go the same route of demolishing a big skyscraper to replace it with something else.
From a prominence perspective, it depends also on how tall a new tower would be relative to the others around it and where it's positioned. From that perspective, I suspect the one on Madison for example would be attractive if you're talking about prominence and showing the company's name and/or logo at the top basically. From a suburban commuter perspective it's a nice location. But from a city train perspective it's not the greatest. I think 130 N Franklin is the best location wise from a logistics perspective though.
Also consider if they do want a new tower, how architecturally significant they'd want it. I'd guess to keep up with B of A and BMO, they'd want it to be something that looks good potentially iconic....which would be great for Chicago.
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I'm sure one option being carefully considered is something similar to what BofA is doing here (IIRC) and what I'd assume Chase might be doing in Manhattan - a new state of the art tower for all of the 'highest value add' groups and some infrastructure - all the rainmakers, most expensive talent, etc, and then keep some existing nearby space for 'back office' and a lot of other infrastructure and internal functions. This would obviously cut down on the size of the new anchor lease and thus the size of the new tower.
I was just reminded of something from nearly 2 decades ago - I believe it was Bank One that signed a huge anchor pre-lease for 131 South Dearborn. I don't know exactly what they planned to put in that space, but I don't believe they ever occupied much if any of the space, and then Chase came along and purchased Bank One maybe 1-2 years after the tower opened and I don't think they had a change of heart in terms of moving in. I want to say they ended up just subleasing the vast majority or all of the space.
Not sure what the deal was going back to Bank One......perhaps Jamie Dimon - who became Bank One CEO in 2000 and moved to Chicago - was just not a fan of the deal to anchor the new tower? Could have coincided in general with a period of downtown Chicago bank footprints shrinking as well....