Chicago post office

The old main Chicago Post Office is a nine story tall building designed by Graham, Anderson, Probst & White, built in 1921. The original structure was a brick sided mail terminal building that still sits just east of the main building that engulf the then Eisenhower Expressway right before it turns into the Congress Parkway. It underwent a major expansion in 1932 which added a total of nine floors with more than 60 acres, or 2.5 million square feet (230,000 m²) of floorspace. Its building site was originally protested would have then blocked the proposed Congress Parkway extension. As a compromise, a hole for the Parkway was purposely designed in the base of the Post Office that would eventually be utilized twenty years later. [http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=128596&page=11] In 1966 the Main Chicago Post Office came to a virtual halt when a logjam of 10 million pieces of mail clogged the system for almost one whole week. [http://www.usps.com/cpim/ftp/pubs/pub100.pdf] When Chicago was rated worst in postal deliveries, a new Main Post Office was purposed for right across Harrison Street. Completed in 1997, the old building was vacated in favor of the new, modernized facility. The official address of the Old Post office is 404 W. Harrison, Chicago, IL. A February 2006 report by the General Accounting Office stated that it costs the government $2 million a year to maintain the retired building. [http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d06248t.pdf]

In popular culture

The Chicago Tribune reported that Walt Disney once sorted mail for the Postal Service at "the Chicago Post Office," but it is unknown if this was a separate branch than the Main Post Office. [http://chicago.about.com/od/government/a/042206_disney.htm]

Filming

In 2004, the post office was used in the filming of Batman Begins, [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0372784/locations] and returned in late April 2007 for filming The Dark Knight, [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0468569/locations] according to most of the local media outlets. [http://cbs2chicago.com/local/local_story_108134225.html] [http://www.nbc5.com/entertainment/12403161/detail.html?dl=headlineclick] [http://www.wbbm780.com/pages/365570.php?contentType=4&contentId=421511] The film crew has plenty of signs up for shooting of "Rory's First Kiss," a.k.a. RFK, but that title is simply a pseudonym for "The Dark Knight." Many websites include pictures of the outside of the Post Office which has been decorated as "Gotham National Bank" on the North side of the building, and "Gotham Police Department" on the East side. Set pictures can be found posted on fan sites.

Future

Over the past 10 years, several plans have been proposed for the vacant building with ideas ranging from offices, condos, hotels, telecom hotel, auto mall, auto pound, water park, and even a casino. On April 19th, 2007, the Chicago Plan Commission approved a plan with Walton Street Capital, LLC to remove 800,000 square feet (74,000 m²) from the center of the building and turn the remaining sections into office space, residences, and a hotel with 240 rooms facing the Chicago River. The property is owned by the United States Post Office. It is under contract to be sold to Walton Street for $10.00. This contract is dependent upon a satisfactory TIF Redevelopment Agreement between the City and Walton Street. A very similar proposal, including the same developer, Walton Street, was first proposed back in the summer of 2005. It included removing a major section from the middle of the structure, albeit then 1 million square feet (90,000 m²) instead of the current 800,000 square feet (74,000 m²). Other slight changes of the current plan over the previous plan now include 10 less hotels rooms, so only a proposed 240, and 100 fewer parking spaces leaving the new total at 400 from the original 500. Details specified in the original proposal that aren't in the current one, or at least haven't been made public have been 250 proposed condominiums and the amount of office space in the north tower would be 550,000 square feet (51,000 m²). [http://www.chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?id=16994&rel=1]