330 North Wabash (formerly IBM Plaza also known as IBM Building and to be renamed AMA Plaza) is a skyscraper in downtown Chicago, Illinois, United States, at 330 N. Wabash Avenue, designed by famed architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (who died in 1969 before construction began). A small bust of the architect by sculptor Marino Marini is displayed in the lobby. The 52-story building is situated on a plaza overlooking the Chicago River. At 695 feet (211,8 meters), 330 North Wabash is the second-tallest building by Mies van der Rohe, the tallest being the Toronto-Dominion Bank Tower at Toronto-Dominion Centre. It was his last American building.
The building's corporate namesake no longer owns nor has offices in the building. IBM sold Plaza IBM to the Blackstone Group in 1996. IBM all but completed its move out of IBM Plaza as of early 2006, taking up space in the new Hyatt Center building closer to Union Station. Law firm Jenner & Block is vacating ten prime top floors of the building in spring of 2010.
IBM Plaza has several design features that are rare in an office building but understandable given its original owner. The building's electrical system, environmental system, floor strength, and ceiling height (on certain floors) can support large "raised floor" computing centers. Also, the "banked" intelligent elevator system is a model of efficiency and rarely keeps anyone waiting for service. IBM Plaza stayed dry during the 1992 Chicago Flood.
Notable tenants as of 2006 include the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce, Perkins and Will's founding/largest office, the international architectural firm DeStefano Partners, and several smaller law firms. Prime Group Realty Trust, a subsidiary of The Lightstone Group, the building's current owner considered partially converting it to condominiums in 2006. Those plans were soon abandoned. In 2007, plans were announced to convert floors two through thirteen of the fifty-two story building into a high-end hotel. The Langham, Chicago is expected to open in 2013, occupying floors two through thirteen. The building was declared a Chicago Landmark on February 6, 2008 and added to the National Register of Historic Places on March 26, 2010. It is also the newest building in Chicago in terms of age on both lists.
On December 9, 2011, the American Medical Association announced it would move its headquarters and entire workforce to 330 N. Wabash from its previous headquarters on State Street. The move will occur in September 2013 and the building will be renamed AMA Plaza.
Famous quotes containing the words north and/or wabash:
“Come see the north wind’s masonry.
Out of an unseen quarry evermore
Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer
Curves his white bastions with projected roof”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Well, Mary, only six more days to go and your old Nathan will be out of the army. Haven’t decided what I’ll do yet. Somehow I just can’t picture myself back there on the banks of the Wabash rocking on a front porch. No, I’ve been thinkin I, maybe I’ll push on west, new settlements, California.”
—Frank S. Nugent (1908–1965)