Completion 3: ABN Amro Plaza
Cost: $387 million

The 31-story ABN Amro Plaza features unique design elements, such as a trapezoidal shape, top-to-bottom empty space on the corner of Clinton and Madison streets and a cornice.

Viewed from the southeast, the building brings to mind a ship. The wide bottom-six floors resemble a hull, and the narrow upper floors look like a sail.

The building features 1.4 million sq. ft. of space. The bottom floors, made up of 60,000 sq. ft. of space, will have twice the area of the upper floors.

The building will be the North American headquarters of Amsterdam-based ABN Amro Bank N.V., and it will consolidate the financial giant's Windy City holdings, which were scattered across numerous Loop locations.

The bank's considerable data processing operations are located on three of the lower floors.

Twin Tower Coming?

A twin tower might rise on the block's western edge, and strategies were implemented to fit everything.

The caissons and columns of the tower one's western edge, for instance, were designed to support the potential phase two tower's eastern edge.

Planning took into account other elements, such as accommodating Chicago's ever-present winds. The designs were tested in a laboratory to ensure the two together would not cause an unacceptable acceleration of wind speed, in addition to tests to make certain the structures' lateral resistance and cladding could resist loads.

The tower's 150-ft.-long, 30-ft.-wide core - which holds the elevators, stairs and some rooms - is composed of five concrete cells. The core tapers as it rises, leaving only two cells at the top. The perimeter is held up with structural steel, and about 6,000 tons of steel go into the building.

A unitized curtain wall made of green and blue panels dresses the building.

The building's under-floor air-plenum system eliminates ductwork and allows tenants the flexibility to adapt air conditioning to their needs.

Chillers on the seventh and 29th floors cool the air, and fan columns in the core deliver air to the underside of each floor where there are tap-offs. The return air via natural draft is through a ceiling plenum.

The system's advantage is that if a tenant moves or a floor layout is redesigned, only minimal adjustments are needed.

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