Building · fulton-market

1K Fulton (former Fulton Market Cold Storage)

1K Fulton is the former Fulton Market Cold Storage building — a 1923 industrial structure that anchored Chicago's wholesale meat-packing trade for most of the 20th century. Sterling Bay redeveloped the building 2013–2015 into Class A creative office; Google has occupied a major portion since 2015 as its Chicago headquarters.

Address
1000 W Fulton Market, Chicago, IL 60607
Year built
1920
Architect
Gardner & Lindberg (original) — Hartshorne Plunkard (2013–2015 conversion)
Developer
Sterling Bay
Nearest L station
Morgan (Green & Pink lines)
Historic status
Inside the Fulton-Randolph Market District (Chicago Landmark, 2015), but catalogued Non-Contributing in the City's designation report
Current use
Class A creative office (corporate tenants)
Official site
sterlingbay.com

About

The City's landmark designation report catalogues the building as a 10-story cold-storage building put up in 1920 for the Fulton Market Cold Storage Co., architects Gardner & Lindberg. Sterling Bay's own materials date it to 1923; where the two disagree, the year above follows the City. Western Union ran an office in the building, and the cold-storage function continued through the 1980s, by which point most of the meat trade had moved to outer industrial districts.

Sterling Bay acquired the property and undertook the conversion in 2013, with architecture by Hartshorne Plunkard. The renovation preserved much of the original brick exterior and exposed-beam interiors while adding rooftop access, new mechanical systems, and modern office floor plates.

Google's Midwest headquarters opened in the building in December 2015, bringing about 650 Google employees to the corridor. The 1K Fulton building sold for $257 million in 2016 — at the time the third most expensive office deal in Chicago history.

Sources