The Tribune Tower Is Being Sold To An L.A. Developer

By Rachel Cromidas in News on Aug 31, 2016 2:27PM

It's the end of an era. Just under a year after announcing plans to sell the iconic Tribune Tower on Michigan Avenue, Tribune Media has reportedly inked a deal with a Los Angeles developer.

The North Michigan Avenue office tower is the historic home and namesake of the Chicago Tribune and a host of other sister publications that reside there. The Tribune Company fell on hard times in 2008, when it filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy and later went through a series of restructuring and ownership changes, many layoffs, and a split into what is now Tribune Media, which owns the tower, and Tribune Publishing, which owns the Chicago Tribune, the L.A. Times and other publications and rents office space in the tower. Tribune Publishing, hilariously, was rebranded as Tronc earlier this year after news business dilettante Michael Ferro became the majority shareholder.

CIM Group, an L.A. developer, has partnered with Chicago developer Golub & Co to buy the tower from Tribune Media for up to $240 million, the Tribune reports. But the deal is not expected to close until the end of September. The tower takes up just 737,000 square feet of the 2.4 million square-foot property, and Tribune Media has suggested that the land could be redeveloped with new buildings to include a hotel, residential homes and retail. According to the Tribune, the paper's lease doesn't run out at the tower until 2018.

The 34-story Tribune Tower was built in 1925 and designed by architects Raymond Hood and John Mead Howells, according to the Chicago Architecture Foundation. It was made an official Chicago Landmark in 1989 and its facade is well-known for containing stones from famous landmarks around the world, including the Taj Mahal, the Great Wall of China and the White House.