The Office Tower Has a New Job to Do
Sourced from Bloomberg
In 2015, private equity giant Blackstone Inc. purchased the Willis (née Sears) Tower and began a half-billion-dollar renovation that would radically change the role the former tallest building in the world would play in downtown Chicago.
Today, anyone — not just workers in the 108-story office tower — can sample from a wide range of new public amenities inside the building. At a new multi-level food hall, you can grab breakfast at Do-Rite Donuts and Chicken or spend $19 on a bluefin tuna roll at Sushi San. The Color Factory, an interactive (as in: Instragrammable) art museum, opened up in June, beckoning tourists and locals with chromatic thirst traps. A 75,000-squre-foot conference center hosts group meetings, and weddings are in the works. On the tower’s podium, yoga classes and concerts can be held on a new 30,000-square-foot landscaped roof garden. Office workers in need of an early happy hour can find one in a new bar on the 33rd floor that opens at 3 pm.
And of course, you can go to all the way to the top: After taking in a museum experience recapping the high points of Chicago history and culture (the Great Fire, Mies Van der Rohe, deep-dish pizza), visitors to the Skydeck observatory rocket up to the 103rd floor for a view of the downtown Loop and Lake Michigan from 1,353 feet.
From the Living Architecture Monitor
