Lee Miglin

Lee Albert Miglin (July 12, 1924 – May 4, 1997) was an American businessman. After starting his career as a door-to-door salesman and then broker, Miglin became a successful real estate developer. He was an early developer of business parks. His firm, at one point, proposed the construction of the Miglin-Beitler Skyneedle, which was planned to be the tallest building in the world. Miglin was murdered in his home in May 1997 as part of a murder spree by Andrew Cunanan.

Miglin was born in Westville, Illinois and was one of seven children born to a Roman Catholic family of Lithuanian descent. His father was a Czech immigrant who worked as a Central Illinois coal miner and also owned a tavern, ice cream parlor, and soda distributorship.

Miglin trained as an air cadet during World War II, before attending the University of Illinois.

Miglin began his professional career selling silverware door-to-door and pancake batter out of the trunk of his car. After this, he sold frozen cheesecakes, and subsequent to that sold TV dinners. He quit his salesman job to spend a six month trip across Europe. After this, he decided to make an effort to go into real estate to make substantial money.

In 1956, at the age of 31, Miglin began his real estate career. In the early 1960s, he took a job as a broker with Chicago real estate magnate Arthur Rubloff. At Arthur Rubloff & Co., Miglin would first get involved with warehouse construction, later moving into office development. One of the projects he was involved in was the development of the first two of the three towers at the President's Plaza office complex near Chicago's O'Hare International Airport. Miglin would later develop the third tower in 1985 with his firm Miglin-Beitler. Miglin was regarded as an early developer of business park developments. He worked at Rubloff & Co. for 25 years.

Miglin formed a successful real estate development partnership with J. Paul Beitler, who had also worked at Rubloff & Co. Together, they founded the firm Miglin-Beitler Developments in 1982. Among the projects developed by the firm were Madison Plaza (200 West Madison), 181 West Madison Street, and Oakbrook Terrace Tower (the tallest building in Illinois outside of Chicago). In the late-1980s, they built a Helmut Jahn-designed building in Chicago that housed the headquarters of Chocolat Suchard's United States division. In addition to constructing developments, the firm also managed properties.

In 1983, it was announced that Miglin would alongside Erich Bitter co-head Bitter Automobile of America, a newly-launched American division of Bitter Automotive headquartered in Chicago. Miglin and Bitter introduced an American variant of the Bitter SC to the United States market. The cars were sold through Buick dealerships. However, few Buick dealerships agreed to sport Bitter signage, which resulted in low sales that doomed the venture.

In 1988, Miglin-Beitler Developments unveiled plans to construct a 1,999 ft (609 m) 125-floor skyscraper in Chicago to be called the Miglin-Beitler Skyneedle. This would have been the tallest building in the world at the time of its planned completion. However, the building was never built, with plans faltering during a 1990 downturn of Chicago's downtown office market. Miglin-Beitler had held hopes of resurrecting the project, but these hopes would be dashed by Miglin's murder.