# Does Anyone Want Sears (Willis) Tower? ![[images/Does-Anyone-Want-Sears-Willis-Tower-t0475.webp]] **Creator:** The B1M · **Presenter:** The B1M presenter (not named in the captions) · **Published:** 2026-09-21 · **Length:** 17:21 · [Watch on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNteSDU9ZkQ) > Caption source: YouTube English (en-GB) manual captions via yt-dlp (default client). Chapters from the video description; full written story on theb1m.com. The interviewed experts are not named in the captions. ## Outline ### 0:00 Intro - **0:02** "This is the moment skyscraper design changed forever." Since the mid-1970s the **Willis Tower**, or **Sears Tower** to locals, has defined Chicago's skyline. - **0:15** It was the world's tallest building for almost a quarter of a century and influenced engineers worldwide, including the team behind the buildings that eventually took its title. - **0:29** In **2015** it sold for a record-breaking fee and has since had a half-billion-dollar renovation, but the world has changed fast and the landmark's future is now uncertain. ### 0:48 What's in a Name? - **0:50** More than 50 years after construction it is still Chicago's tallest building, and people still queue for its observation deck. Yet it may face a big test of what it's really worth today. - **1:13** Chicagoans still call it the Sears Tower (short clips of locals saying so). Since a British firm renamed it Willis Tower, the presenter sides with Chicago and uses "Sears Tower" as "a peace offering." ### 1:55 The Sears Story ![[images/Does-Anyone-Want-Sears-Willis-Tower-t0140.webp]] - **2:07** The 1960s were the peak of the American department store, and **Sears, Roebuck & Co.** became America's retail king, arguably the world's largest retailer. - **2:18** By the late 1960s it had tens of thousands of employees spread across Chicago, including a sprawling west-side campus of offices and warehouses. It wanted a modern, centralised HQ in the **Chicago Loop**. - **3:04** The building had to fit the workforce and make a statement. Sears estimated about **2 million sq ft** of offices for current staff and optimistically forecast **4 million sq ft** for future growth. That growth never came, but the brief was for a very large, very tall building. ### 3:34 The Location - **3:35** No site that big existed downtown unless you paid for it. Sears bought **15 buildings** across a **two-block area**, spending more than **$2M** to acquire part of a whole street. - **4:02** That plot let Sears build the world's tallest building for itself: at **442 metres**, taller than the **World Trade Center** towers topping out in Lower Manhattan in 1970. - **4:29** The presenter jokes about building a B1M supertall one day, with a giant poster of his face like Elliot Carver's in *Tomorrow Never Dies*. - **4:55** Sponsor segment: **Rayon Design**, a web-based CAD platform. The presenter lays out a Sears Tower-inspired "B1M Tower" office with a boardroom table, bookcase and chairs, using its **50,000+ block** CAD library, an AI tool that generates custom blocks, and an all-in-one design, edit and present workflow. Free to try. ### 6:12 Bundled Tube Design - **6:12** Sears held an architectural competition, won by **Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM)** with something revolutionary. - **6:26** The key question was how to build so tall without enormous cost. SOM structural engineer **Fazlur Khan** answered with the **tube structure**. - **6:44** Earlier skyscrapers such as the **Empire State** and **Chrysler** buildings used a matrix of steel beams and columns all the way up, plus extra steel for wind bracing. Going to **110 storeys** that way would cost a fortune. - **7:07** Khan proposed a **bundled tube** design, never done before. Tall, narrowly spaced columns joined by **spandrel beams** make the building act like a vertical tube, which cuts the steel needed to resist wind. ![[images/Does-Anyone-Want-Sears-Willis-Tower-t0460.webp]] - **7:34** There are **nine tubes** bundled on a **3×3 grid**, each square **75 feet** wide. - **7:42** The tubes connect on every floor through horizontal beams, and large **trusses at three levels** tie them together more firmly. They show on the outside as dark bands and house the mechanical systems. - **7:59** No internal support walls are needed, so floors are big, open and flexible, ideal for a corporate office. - **8:10** As the tower rises, **seven of the tubes step back** at different heights, reducing wind loads and limiting sway. ### 8:20 The Tower's Influence - **8:20** Built **1970 to 1973**, it gave Chicago the world's-tallest title for the first and only time, and held it for almost **25 years**. Only the Empire State held the crown longer in the skyscraper era. - **8:50** A year after completion, once all Sears staff had moved in, the tower opened the **Skydeck** on the **103rd floor**, still the highest observation platform in the US. On a clear day you can see about **50 miles** across **four states**. ![[images/Does-Anyone-Want-Sears-Willis-Tower-t0570.webp]] - **9:16** No major skyscraper copied it exactly, but several borrowed ideas. The **Burj Khalifa**, another SOM project, uses a **buttressed core** to reach **828 metres**: a conceptual evolution of Khan's approach, with three wings around a central core working as one system. - **9:54** The towers that overtook Sears, Malaysia's **Petronas Towers**, use a **tube-in-tube** system engineered by **Thornton Tomasetti**: an outer tube of concrete columns plus a concrete tube in the core for extra rigidity. ![[images/Does-Anyone-Want-Sears-Willis-Tower-t0595.webp]] - **10:23** Petronas winning the title was controversial: its **46-metre spires** counted towards its height, but Sears's two broadcast antennas, added in **1982**, didn't. Counting them, Sears would still be taller, and it has a higher occupied floor. The presenter points to The B1M's recent video on **vanity height**. ### 11:08 Changing Times - **11:08** By the late 1990s, when it lost the title, Sears itself had been moving employees out through the decade and was gone by **1995**. It couldn't afford the overheads and was struggling against **Walmart** and **Target**. - **11:32** Sears never filled the extra space it forecast. Firms such as **Goldman Sachs** leased upper floors from the start, so contrary to popular belief it was never fully occupied by its namesake. ### 12:19 New Ownership - **11:52** In **1997** it sold for **$110M**, then changed hands several times over 18 years. - **12:05** Naming rights went to British insurance broker **Willis Group Holdings** in **2004**, and it officially became the **Willis Tower** in **2009**. - **12:19** In **2015** investment firm **Blackstone** bought it for **$1.3BN**, a record for an office building outside New York. It looked like a solid buy: a world-famous building in a great city with high occupancy, though "a sum they may now wish they'd haggled down a bit." - **12:54** The problem: despite being almost full, the building still had a closed-off **1970s corporate feel**. The base felt like a fortress with few amenities, unlike today's sleek, open, mixed-use **Grade A** offices. ![[images/Does-Anyone-Want-Sears-Willis-Tower-t0830.webp]] - **13:25** From **2017 to 2022** Blackstone spent another **$670M** on a more "human-centric" building: new retail, dining and entertainment, an outdoor garden and terrace, lounges, fitness centres and an upgraded Skydeck. ### 13:56 Imminent Sale? - **13:57** Blackstone has now sunk almost **$2BN** into the tower, hoping a future buyer will pay more. - **14:08** Recent reports say it is "exploring options to exit its ownership" and sounding out buyers who might take on its outstanding **$1.3BN loan**. - **14:24** Breaking even could be hard: the tower was last valued at just over **$1BN**, interest rates are far higher than a decade ago, and a pandemic mid-renovation changed the world of work. ### 14:43 Blackstone's Challenge - **14:43** An interviewed expert says the building is still popular, with relatively high occupancy and demand to be there, but Chicago faces headwinds: **COVID** decimated office demand, and the city builds so much that the tower competes with plenty of newer offices. - **15:11** Until Chicago lures companies and people back to offices, Blackstone will have to hold the tower until the market recovers or find a buyer willing to take the risk. - **15:30** That could be a warning sign for investors in similar deals. Ageing towers need money to keep up, so happy owners matter. - **15:52** The Skydeck draws about **1.5 million** visitors a year and the building is about **85%** leased, which still might not ease concerns. With few potential buyers in a struggling market, any sale could be very difficult, and more big overhauls look unlikely until they make financial sense. ### 16:24 Conclusion - **16:24** The hope is that the tower keeps being looked after. The **Chrysler Building** shows what happens when old skyscrapers aren't supported: it is already up for sale at a knockdown price because it is falling apart. - **16:41** Sears Tower is in a better position and its immediate future looks secure, but that can change. - **16:52** Sponsor recap (Rayon Design) and subscribe call. ## Things Mentioned ### Buildings & Places - Sears Tower / Willis Tower (Chicago; 442 m, 110 storeys; built 1970–1973; world's tallest for almost 25 years; Skydeck on floor 103) - Chicago Loop (central business district) and Sears's former west-side campus - World Trade Center towers (Lower Manhattan; topped out 1970) - Empire State Building and Chrysler Building (New York; the Chrysler is for sale at a knockdown price) - Burj Khalifa (Dubai; 828 m; SOM; buttressed core) - Petronas Towers (Kuala Lumpur; tube-in-tube by Thornton Tomasetti; 46 m spires) ### Engineering & Design Concepts - Steel beam-and-column frame with added wind bracing (older skyscrapers) - Tube structure: narrowly spaced columns joined by spandrel beams - Bundled tube: nine 75 ft square tubes on a 3×3 grid, with seven tubes setting back at different heights - Belt trusses at three levels, which also hold mechanical plant - Column-free open floor plates - Buttressed core (Burj Khalifa) and tube-in-tube (Petronas Towers) - Vanity height and how antennas versus spires count towards official height ### Numbers & Deals - Sears's space estimates: about 2M sq ft then, 4M sq ft forecast - Site assembly: 15 buildings over two blocks, more than $2M - 1982: two broadcast antennas added - 1995: Sears fully moved out - 1997: sold for $110M - 2004: naming rights to Willis Group Holdings; 2009: renamed Willis Tower - 2015: Blackstone pays $1.3BN, a record for an office building outside New York - 2017–2022: $670M renovation, bringing Blackstone's total to almost $2BN - Outstanding loan $1.3BN; last valuation just over $1BN - Skydeck visitors about 1.5M a year; building about 85% leased; 50-mile, four-state view ### Organisations - Sears, Roebuck & Co. - Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) - Thornton Tomasetti - Blackstone - Willis Group Holdings - Goldman Sachs (early tenant of upper floors) - Walmart and Target (Sears's competitors) ### Media, Sponsors & Links - Rayon Design (paid promotion): rayon.design, free to try; Sears Tower-inspired floorplan exercise - *Tomorrow Never Dies* (James Bond film; villain Elliot Carver's giant poster) - The B1M's earlier video on vanity height in skyscrapers - *Mega Builds*, book by Fred Mills - The World's Best Construction Podcast (The B1M); Get Construction Talking initiative - Full story: theb1m.com/video/sears-tower-gamble - News footage on screen includes CBS 2 Chicago and LOCAL 12 ("Willis Tower Sold: private equity firm pays $1.3 billion") - Footage credits: SOM, BoldlyBuilding, CBS Chicago, C. William Brubaker Collection, Dave Burk, Ezra Stoller, FOX 32 Chicago, Garrett Rowland, Hedrich Blessing Photographers, Jonathan Haeber, Library of Congress, LOCAL 12, McShane-Fleming Studios, Orlando R Cabanban, Paramount, Perform Properties, Phillip Pesar, Ricky Esquivel, Robert Fine, scottjohnson1970, SeeingCoolPlaces, Steven Martin, Tom Harris, University of Illinois at Chicago, U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, WGN Radio and WTTW. ## Bios - **The B1M presenter**: The on-camera host isn't named in the captions. They tell the tower's story and lay out a sample Sears Tower-inspired office in Rayon Design for the sponsor segment. The B1M is the world's largest construction-focused video channel, co-founded by Fred Mills, whose book *Mega Builds* is plugged in the description. - **Interviewed experts**: Two or more commentators, shown on video calls, explain the tube structure, the Petronas Towers' system and Chicago's office market. The captions don't name them. - **Fazlur Rahman Khan (1929–1982)**: Bangladeshi-American structural engineer at SOM, often called the father of tubular designs for high-rises. He developed the framed and bundled tube systems used for the Sears Tower and Chicago's John Hancock Center. - **Jon Gray**: President and COO of Blackstone. He appears in news footage (CBS 2 chyron) around the firm's 2015 purchase of the tower. - **Elliot Carver**: The fictional media-mogul villain of the 1997 James Bond film *Tomorrow Never Dies*, mentioned for his giant self-portrait banner. - **Sears, Roebuck & Co.**: Chicago-founded retailer, once arguably the world's largest. It built the tower as its headquarters, then moved out by 1995 as it struggled against Walmart and Target. - **Blackstone**: New York-based investment firm and the tower's owner since 2015. It has invested almost $2BN in the building and is reportedly exploring a sale.