Preservation fails; Burnham-designed West Loop building meets wrecking ball

Despite a down-to-the wire effort to save it from the wrecking ball, a Daniel Burnham-designed building was turned into rubble in the bustling West Loop late last week.

Preservationists had tried to find interested parties willing to fork over about $200,000 — lower than initial estimates — to salvage the unique facade of the building.

Two parties stepped up and showed interest, but a deal couldn’t be hashed out, said Ward Miller, who heads up the advocacy group Preservation Chicago and aided in a search for saviors with deep pockets.

“It just didn’t work out at the last minute,” Miller said of the deal. “We were very close.”

The building at 1217 W. Washington Blvd. was designed in 1910 by Daniel Burnham, revered as one of the greatest architects and city planners Chicago has ever produced.

It was demolished Thursday.

Miller would not disclose the identities of the interested parties or why any potential deal fell apart.

“It’s not an easy thing to take apart the facade of a building and put it back together somewhere else,” Miller said.

The facade, constructed with white glazed brick, wood and sheet metal, featured an ornate topper.

Developer Phil Denny of Peppercorn Capital owns the property and applied for a demolition permit in 2017. Despite the building’s “orange” rating as “potentially significant,” which triggered a review by the city, Denny’s permit was ultimately approved in late January.

A message left for Denny at Peppercorn Capital, which also owns 1201 W. Washington Blvd., home of Sun-Times Media, was not immediately returned.

Ald. Walter Burnett (27th) said he was not even aware a historic building in his ward was in jeopardy, let alone got knocked down.

“If they had reached out to me I would have looked into it,” he said during a phone call Monday afternoon.

A representative of Precision Excavation and Demolition, a contractor working on the site, was not immediately available.