Tribune Tower has been sold for the price of $240 million, according to a report from its current tenant and namesake, the Chicago Tribune. The buyers of the iconic Michigan Avenue building are Los Angeles-based developer CIM Group, who also own the Block 37 development in the Loop and recently purchased an office building at 440 North LaSalle Street. CIM Group plans to redevelop the tower, which means that the Tribune will be vacating the building in 2017 and moving to a new Chicago-based headquarters.
The historic, neo-Gothic tower was completed in 1925 and was built based on designs by New York architects Raymond Hood and John Mead Howells, who won a $100,000 contest to design the Tribune's new headquarters to mark the paper's 75th anniversary. The building's signature buttresses and gargoyles have since become a beloved part of Chicago's skyline and a popular destination during the annual Open House Chicago event. Tourists can usually be found taking photos at the base of the tower, where fragments of famous buildings from all over the world (including the Taj Mahal and the Alamo) are embedded in the walls.
CIM Group has not revealed what it will do with the 740,000-square-foot, 36-story building, but a conversion into some combination of condominiums, hotel rooms or retail space seems likely. Much like the home of the White Sox (which will soon be known as Guaranteed Rate Field), the Tribune Tower will likely be renamed once its former tenants move out, though we're sure that most Chicagoans will stubbornly cling to its classic moniker.
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