For the first time in the 22-year history of Preservation Chicago’s annual ranking of the city’s seven most endangered buildings, a former McDonald’s restaurant has cracked the list — sort of.
No, it’s not a classic golden arches burger joint, but rather a shuttered first-floor McDonald’s restaurant that may be threatening plans to renovate and repurpose a 150-year-old Loop office building, which tops the endangered list for 2025.
The Delaware Building at 36 W. Randolph St., an eight-story, Italianate-style building that was among the first to rise from the ashes of the 1871 Great Chicago Fire, is nearly vacant, deteriorating and stuck in redevelopment limbo. McDonald’s, which closed the restaurant during the pandemic and never reopened, has a half-century remaining on a 99-year lease, which the Chicago-based chain has yet to relinquish.
“It just seems like various plans have fallen through because of the McDonald’s space,” said Ward Miller, executive director of Preservation Chicago. “They’re making it very hard for the repurposing of this building.”
A McDonald’s spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
Designed by architects Wheelock & Thomas, the ornate Delaware Building features a cast-iron base topped with a concrete facade. It was completed between 1872 and 1874, with an 1889 remodel by architect Julius H. Huber, adding two floors to the top and a dramatic steel-framed interior atrium.
The Delaware Building was listed on the National Register in 1974 and designated a Chicago Landmark in 1983, offering protection against demolition. That hasn’t prevented underutilization and decay, however.
Plans to convert upper office floors to residential or perhaps sell the building have been stymied by the ongoing McDonald’s lease for the first two floors, Miller said. He is hoping the Chicago-based fast food giant will step up in a spirit of civic responsibility and give up its former space.
“We’d like to see McDonald’s open to the idea of turning over their lease, realizing this is a landmark building in downtown Chicago,” Miller said.
The other Chicago landmarks that made the group’s most endangered list this year:
2. Clarence Darrow Memorial Bridge
Designed by famed Chicago architectural firm Burnham and Root, the bridge, originally known as the Columbia Drive Bridge, has spanned Jackson Park’s lagoon since 1880, offering picturesque views and passage to the lakefront.
It predates the nearby Griffin Museum of Science and Industry, whose building was part of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. In 1957, the structure was renamed for famed Chicago attorney Clarence Darrow, a Hyde Park resident who frequented the bucolic bridge while contemplating cases.
Jackson Park was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972 and the bridge also falls within the boundary of the 1994 Chicago Landmark designation for the Museum of Science and Industry. But the stone bridge has fallen into disrepair, with the Chicago Department of Transportation cordoning it off to pedestrian traffic in 2013.
Renovating and reopening the bridge while preserving its historical elements has proved elusive to date, especially for CDOT, Miller said. He is hoping a new Jackson Park neighbor, the Obama Presidential Center, which is set to open next year, will take up the cause.
“It’d be wonderful if an entity like the Obama Presidential Center, which is building very close by, would participate in helping to fund this in a very sensitive way,” Miller said. “It needs to be sensitively addressed and very carefully restored.”
3. J.J. Walser House
Built in 1903, the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed single family home in the Austin neighborhood, is an unusual location — the only one of its kind on Chicago’s West Side — and an exemplary representation of the architect’s Prairie style. But it has fallen on hard times.
Tucked within a narrow urban lot, the modest home has been lauded for its simplicity, free-flowing efficiency and organic naturalism. The home, which has been sold a dozen times, has been remodeled by various occupants over the years, but was essentially preserved with only minor changes under its last owner for more than 50 years.
Since the passing of that owner, Anne Teague, in 2019, the house has been unoccupied and deteriorating. The property is in foreclosure and burdened by a reverse mortgage, which has hampered efforts to find a new owner to restore and preserve the house, Miller said.
Designated a Chicago Landmark in 1984, the property was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2013 for its significant design by Frank Lloyd Wright. The vacant house is protected from demolition, but not from harsh Midwestern winters and occasional vandalism, Miller said.
Preservation Chicago is looking to get the house out of foreclosure and sell it to an owner that would commit to its restoration. The complicated financial situation may take a year or more to navigate, Miller said.
“It’s really sad to see a Frank Lloyd Wright structure like this in such disrepair,” Miller said.
4. Olivet Baptist Church
Located in the Bronzeville/Douglas neighborhood, the Olivet Baptist Church houses one of the oldest African American congregations in Chicago. Built in 1876, the Gothic Revival church has long been a cultural landmark, but the building itself at 3101 S. King Drive never achieved that formal status. Clad in rough ashlar veneer, trimmed in Joliet limestone and topped with a 160-foot steepled tower, it nonetheless remains a prominent architectural feature with a storied history.
But as the congregation has dwindled during the new millennium, the building has begun to deteriorate. Preservation Chicago is recommending the the church pursue designation as a Chicago Landmark as a first step towards restoring the building to its historic glory.
5. Central Manufacturing District Clock Tower
For more than a century, an 11-story, red brick and terra cotta tower has stood watch over the brawny Central Manufacturing District, the nation’s first planned industrial development along Pershing Road in McKinley Park on the city’s Southwest Side.
Financier and railroad magnate Frederick Henry Prince created the Central Manufacturing District by his Chicago Junction Railway switching yard and the South Branch of the Chicago River. It began to take shape in 1902 with the construction of the U.S. Leather Co. building and expanded west along Pershing Road, ultimately covering more than 350 acres.
At its height, more than 250 companies, from Wrigley to Westinghouse, operated out of the buildings. Activity dwindled as tenants fled to suburban industrial parks that sprung up along interstate highways, turning the manufacturing district into a memory and the buildings into targets for redevelopment and preservationists.
Like many buildings in the development, the Clock Tower is vacant and deteriorating. The Central Manufacturing District and its buildings have been on the most endangered list several times over the last decade. Recent effort to sell the buildings have proved unsuccessful. And last year, the 104-year-old Continental Can Building fell to the wrecking ball.
Preservation Chicago is recommending Chicago Landmark status for the Clock Tower to incentivize its preservation and restoration.
6. Western Boulevard Industrial Buildings
Eight historic buildings along Western Boulevard in the Back of the Yards neighborhood form a century-old industrial corridor designed by some noted architects. Original occupants included Inland Steel, Whitney & Ford, Grinnell and O-Cedar. Some of the buildings are in use by new tenants, while others are unoccupied.
Mostly two- to four-story red brick buildings, some feature ornamental stone and terra cotta elements, original signage and rooftop water towers, once a standard requirement in the wake of the city’s Great Fire.
While all of the industrial buildings are part of the National Register-listed Chicago Park Boulevard System Historic District, many are showing their age. In addition to keeping the buildings in operation and addressing needed repairs to restore the historic elements, Preservation Chicago is recommending a Chicago Landmark designation to prevent demolition or changes that would destroy their character.
7. St. Martin’s Church
The former St. Martin de Tours Church at 5848 S. Princeton Ave. in the Englewood neighborhood is returning to the list and still in danger. Originally built for the German Catholic community, the church closed in 1989, reopened as an Evangelical Black congregation in 1998 and shuttered in 2017. The century-old Gothic church building is deteriorating after years of deferred maintenance.
Distinctive features include a 228-foot stone steeple, limestone exterior and original stained glass windows, although much of the church’s interior wood-carved details have been lost.
Preservation Chicago is hoping a new congregation might move in and restore the church, or the building could be repurposed as a community center, among other potential adaptive reuses. As with other endangered structures, Preservation Chicago is recommending it be designated a local landmark to prevent demolition and encourage restoration.
Missing from this year’s list after three years at the top are the Century and Consumers buildings, a pair of century-old Loop skyscrapers that were threatened with demolition by the federal government, which acquired them in 2007 as a buffer and potential office expansion for the adjacent federal courthouse.
The vacant buildings in the 200 block of South State Street, among the last vestiges of the Chicago School of Architecture, were earmarked for demolition in 2022 after a proposal for a $141 million mixed-use redevelopment was shot down over security concerns raised by neighboring federal judges.
But after years of efforts by preservationists, the General Services Administration, which manages the government-owned buildings, determined they should be saved from the wrecking ball and repurposed, with development teams submitting proposals for adaptive reuse in January.
“We at Preservation Chicago are grateful for this determination, and we look forward to working with the GSA towards any type of revisioning, reuse of these buildings with whatever team they pick,” Miller said.
rchannick@chicagotribune.com
