J. Hancock Center Gets No Love

By Alicia Dorr in News on Dec 11, 2006 8:00PM

Everyone knows Chicago architecture is excellent, but we recently realized how little we know about it again when we heard about the John Hancock Center's commercial space being sold.

It's not that it was sold that surprised us somewhat, but the fact that the city's 3rd tallest building isn't a big draw for tenants. Chicago-based Golub & Co. bought the commercial real estate in the building for $380 million from the San Francisco-based Shorenstein Properties LLC, which we suppose is nothing to sniff at. The deal didn't include the building's residential space, either, which will remain with its owners. It's the commercial space that has apparently had trouble attracting occupants: of 880,000 square feet, 250,000 is empty.

If we were the John Hancock building, we'd be a little sad about that. All the other tall buildings have no problem getting big-shots to sign on for office space. What could it be? The never-ending stream of tourists fattened by delicious cheesecake getting lost on their way up to the observation deck? The haunted past, or perhaps the spiders that cover the building at certain times of the year? Um, nevermind. We think we just figured out why it's not that popular. Sorry, J. Hancock.

Photo via Chicagosnapshot.com.