We didn’t need the death of architect Helmut Jahn to bring the plight of the James R. Thompson Center to our attention. The state’s May 3 request for proposals to buy the iconic structure—minus any stipulation that it not be torn down—had already drawn widespread notice.
The building was controversial before it opened in May, 1985 (as the State of Illinois Center), and more so afterward. From the outside, it resembled nothing so much as a spaceship improbably plunked down (at 100 West Randolph) across the street from the classical City/County Building. Its color scheme of aqua blue and salmon pink was immediately despised. State workers complained about leaks in the glass-panel exterior, a cooling system that proved woefully inadequate for summer heat, and noise and odors wafting up from the lower-level restaurants. Jahn blamed the state for substituting inferior building materials for what he had specified, and, later, for decades of blatantly deferred maintenance.
This is deliberately misleading, DiChiera says. “Every developer that does historic rehab knows that you can be looking at historic tax credits as a potential financing tool for a major rehab project, even if the building is only deemed eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places and is not yet officially listed. It usually just means the developer hires a consultant to do the final nomination. It’s done all the time.”
