AMA Plaza

AMA Plaza (formerly IBM Plaza or IBM Building; also known by its address 330 North Wabash Avenue) is a skyscraper in the River North neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois, United States. It was designed in the International Style by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, with C. F. Murphy as the associate architect, and was the last building Mies designed in Chicago before his death in 1969. The tower is 695 feet (212 m) tall with 52 stories and, when completed in 1972, initially housed the Chicago offices of the technology firm IBM. Since 2013, the 2nd through 13th stories have functioned as a hotel called the Langham, Chicago, while the remaining stories continue to be used as offices. The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is designated as a Chicago Landmark.

IBM officials first contacted Mies to design the building in 1966, and the company officially announced plans for the building in June 1968. Work began in February 1969, and the building was formally dedicated on September 20, 1972. After the last vacant offices were leased in 1975, the building remained fully occupied for two decades. IBM downsized its offices in the mid-1990s and sold it in 1996 to the Blackstone Group, which resold it in 1999 to Prime Group Realty. The building's two largest tenants, IBM and Jenner & Block, announced plans to move out during the mid-2000s, and the 2nd through 13th stories were sold off for hotel use in 2008. Following a major renovation of the entire building, Langham Hotels International opened the Langham hotel there in 2013, and the building was renamed that year for the American Medical Association (AMA), a major office tenant. Beacon Capital Partners bought the office stories in 2016 and conducted another renovation.

AMA Plaza is positioned near the northern end of the site, set back from the Chicago River, and is surrounded by an outdoor public plaza. A glass curtain wall, with vertical mullions of anodized aluminum, forms the building's exterior. The lobby's facade is set back behind an arcade of columns, while the upper stories are nearly identical in design. The superstructure is a steel frame, with its interiors divided into 30-by-40-foot (9.1 by 12.2 m) rectangular modules. The building was equipped with computer-controlled mechanical systems to increase energy efficiency. The entire ground level is occupied by a lobby, while the second floor (originally the dining room) contains a lobby and restaurant for the hotel. The upper floors were originally open plan offices, though the floors occupied by the hotel have since been subdivided. When AMA Plaza was completed, it received commentary on its design. Both the building and the Langham hotel have received awards, and the building has also been depicted in several works of popular media.

AMA Plaza, also known as the IBM Building, is located at 330 North Wabash Avenue in the River North neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois, United States. It was originally alternatively known as One IBM Plaza—a vanity address, since the building's real address was on Wabash Avenue. It is situated on an irregular 1.6-acre (0.65 ha) land lot on the northern bank of the Chicago River's main stem, just north of the Chicago Loop. The site occupies a city block between the Chicago River to the south, State Street and the State Street Bridge to the west, Kinzie Street to the north, and Wabash Avenue and the Wabash Avenue Bridge to the east. The section of Wabash Avenue adjacent to the building deviates from the Chicago street grid, curving slightly westward into the lot.

AMA Plaza is located just north of Chicago's theater district and is also near the Magnificent Mile shopping district on Michigan Avenue. In general, the buildings on adjacent blocks are mid-rise or high-rise buildings, with a mixture of residential and commercial uses. On the block immediately to the west are Marina City and Chicago Varnish Company Building, while to the east is the Trump International Hotel and Tower. Originally, the IBM Building faced the Sun Times Building to the east; that structure was replaced by the Trump Tower in the 2000s. Before the IBM Building was built, the Chicago Sun-Times operated a storage building on the site and owned an easement extending under Wabash Avenue to the basement level of the building. There are railroad tracks under the building, which were used by the Chicago and North Western Railway. There are also several Chicago "L" stations nearby, including State/Lake station across the Chicago River to the south and Grand station on State Street three blocks to the north.

The building is positioned near the northern end of the site, away from the Chicago River, preserving eastward views from Marina City. There is an outdoor public plaza surrounding AMA Plaza, which takes up half of the lot, extending south to the Chicago River shoreline. Due to space constraints, the sections of the plaza along the building's western and eastern facades is only 10 feet (3.0 m) wide. Because the plaza is slightly above State Street, there is a granite retaining wall on that street and stairs descending to sidewalk level at the northwest and southwest corners. The sections of the plaza along the northern and southern facades both have planting beds and granite benches, with more benches and plantings to the south than to the north. The plaza has a group of sculptures by the Taiwanese artist Ju Ming, known as The Gentlemen. It also has approximately 40 replicas of the Barcelona chairs that were designed by the building's architect, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. At the south end of the plaza is an ivy-covered wall descending to the river.

The building's first namesake, IBM, was established in the 1880s. It had maintained a Chicago office since either 1914 or 1916, initially employing a dozen people there. By the 1960s, IBM had more than 4,000 employees in Chicago alone, out of 240,000 worldwide. The company contemplated constructing a 40-to-50-story structure to host 2,000 of its staff, as well as other companies.

IBM officials first contacted Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in 1966, hiring him to design them a new Chicago headquarters. That November, IBM obtained an option on a site along the Chicago River's northern bank, between Wabash Avenue and State Street, from the Chicago Sun-Times. When IBM finally bought the site, it agreed to provide space for a Sun-Times storage facility. The building was tentatively planned to cost $50 million. Upon being hired, Mies was driven to the site to inspect it. The plot, which resembled a boomerang in shape, was so awkwardly positioned that Mies reportedly asked, "Where's the site?"