March 04--Chicago's tallest building could soon have a new owner.
The 110-story Willis Tower is for sale and already has a likely buyer, a source said late Tuesday.
Commercial real estate broker Eastdil Secured is handling the building's sale, the source said.
The Willis Tower, completed in 1973 as the Sears Tower, was the world's tallest building for 23 years and adopted its current name in 2009 as part of an agreement in which London-based insurance broker Willis Group Holdings agreed to lease a portion of the building and got naming rights at the same time.
The building -- co-owned by real estate mogul Joseph Chetrit, developer Joseph Moinian and Skokie-based American Landmark Properties -- is currently 84 percent leased. It is home to United Airlines' global headquarters and the headquarters of the law firm Schiff Hardin LLP. The two companies are the tower's largest and second-largest tenants, respectively.
The tower lost its designation as the nation's tallest building after the Chicago-based Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat ruled in 2013 that New York's One World Trade Center is taller than Chicago's Willis Tower, declaring One World Trade Center is topped with a spire, which counts in official height measurements, rather than an antenna, which doesn't.
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