The Franklin Center is a 60-story supertall skyscraper completed in 1989 as the AT&T Corporate Center to consolidate the central region headquarters of the American Telephone & Telegraph Company (AT&T). It stands at a height of 1007 ft and contains 1,7 sq ft in the Chicago Loop Community Areas of Chicago of downtown Chicago. It is located two blocks east of the Chicago River and northeast of the Willis Tower with a main address of 227 West Monroe Street and an alternate address of 100 South Franklin Street in the Chicago Loop Community areas of Chicago of downtown Chicago.
The supertall building is the tallest constructed in Chicago in the last quarter of the 20th century. It is the List of tallest buildings in Chicago building in Chicago and the List of tallest buildings in the United States. It contains office and retail space and a 350-space garage. Tishman Speyer acquired the property in 2004 and renamed the adjacent USG Building as Franklin Center in 2007 after USG relocated its offices. The name was later applied to the entire complex.
History[]
A 1982 consent decree Breakup of the Bell System monopoly into several entities with local service providers becoming part of a Regional Bell Operating Company. In the decade that followed, AT&T erected new buildings across the country including the Sony Building (New York) in New York City. April 5, 1985, AT&T issued a Request for Proposal that produced eleven respondents. Stein and Co., the winning realtor, sought Skidmore, Owings and Merrill as designers for the purpose of distinguishing a proposal from the nearby Willis Tower. AT&T employees began to occupy the office space April 3, 1989.
The building was built under a self-imposed comprehensive minority contracting and affirmative action package that met the city's 1985 30% hiring rule for public sector projects. Mayor of Chicago Harold Washington's administration had passed an edict that 30% of the work for public sector projects be set aside for minority and women-owned businesses. In a show of support for this rule, Stein & Co. and AT&T adopted the rule for their private development.