![]() Since no deal had been worked out to rename the building by that date, it retained the Sears Tower name until Willis Group Holdings negotiated the naming rights as part of their lease on the building. However, they retained the naming rights until 2003. Sears had mostly moved out of the building by 1992, and closed its last offices there by 1995. ![]() It is currently owned by American Landmark Properties of Skokie, Illinois. Sears, Roebuck and Company owned the building from its conception until it sold it in 1994. Willis Tower in Chicago, formerly the Sears Tower. It is the largest skyscraper in the United States and was for a time the largest skyscraper in the world though it has since been surpassed. As part of the deal whereby they agreed to lease 140,000 square feet of the building, they were given the naming rights to the tower, which had been known as the Sears Tower since its opening in 1973. Willis Group Holdings became a major tenant of the building in March, 2009. Only the Willis Tower can do that.On July 16, 2009, the largest skyscraper in Chicago, Illinois was officially renamed Willis Tower. If you dare to step onto them, you'll have the peculiar feeling of floating over a Windy City, which becomes almost toy-like in appearance. And the newly-installed 'Ledge' has glass-bottomed balconies extending several metres out from the Tower. On a clear day you can see across the 161 kilometres of lake to Michigan State in the east, and take in large tracts of Wisconsin and Indiana to the north and south. Whatever you call it, you can't argue with the view from the Skydeck. ![]() But if you ask any self-respecting Chicagoan, it remains the Sears Tower to this day. ![]() Then, in 2009, the Willis Insurance Group took up some office space, and bought the name. Sears abandoned it in 1992, leaving it without an official name. But it lost ground in the 1980s, and the Sears Tower was never fully occupied. It was built in the heyday of the Sears Company, when it was one of the biggest retailers in the US. The Willis Tower itself has had a few dramas along the way, too. The Skydeck opened at the same time as the building – in 1974 – and has since undergone a dramatic upgrade. That's an eye-watering 412 metres above the busy city streets – high enough to make your ears pop, on the way up in the lift. It has a purpose-built deck, the Skydeck, which sits almost at the top, on its 103rd floor. The lazy steps it takes, to get up to its highest point, suggest a breezy casualness towards its epic size – which goes down well with the citizens of the Windy City.īut the thing that matters most to the visitor – apart from the fact that the Willis Tower is always there, no matter where you are in Chicago – is that this is a tower built to be climbed and viewed from. Others may have acquired the title since, but the Willis Tower remains the tallest building in Chicago, and the US – as well as one of its most recognisable. So the Willis Tower holds a special place in their affections, ever since it seized the 'tallest building in the world' title way back in 1973, when its antennae scraped over the 518-metre mark. The Willis Tower is at its best when you're dangled over one of its glass-bottomed balconies 396 metres above Chicago.įor the city that invented the skyscraper, size against the skyline has always mattered to Chicagoans.
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