Merchandise Mart
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The Merchandise Mart is the world’s largest commercial building, largest wholesale design center and one of the premier international business locations in Chicago. Encompassing 4.2 million ft² (390,000 m²), "The Mart" spans two entire city blocks (bounded by Orleans, Kinzie, and Wells streets, and the Chicago River), rises 25 stories, and has its own CTA train stop and ZIP code.
Conceived as a model of modern, scientific efficiency in wholesale merchandising, the Merchandise Mart's purpose was to centralize Chicago's wholesale goods trade by consolidating its vendors and activities under one roof. The creation of The Merchandise Mart epitomized the business and building boom of the frenzied years of the 1920s, which was categorized by both an ambivalent combination of building tendencies and a traditional view of civic decorum in architecture and planning. At the time of completion in 1931, the Mart was the largest building in the world.
The Merchandise Building was designed by the Chicago architectural firm of Graham, Anderson, Probst and White and when it opened in 1930 the cost of it was reported as both $32 million and $38 million.
Completed by Marshall Field & Company, the Merchandise Mart realized Marshall Field's dream of a single wholesale center for the entire nation. When Joseph P. Kennedy returned to the United States from his position as Ambassador to the United Kingdom, he saw something in what Field was trying to accomplish and purchased the Mart in 1945. The Merchandise Mart was owned and managed by the Kennedy family interests for over 50 years as Merchandise Mart Properties, Inc (MMPI). In 1998, MMPI and the buildings it manages was acquired by Vornado Realty Trust, a leading real estate investment trust (REIT).
Today, the Mart remains the largest trade center in the world and has more than three million visitors each year. Sixty percent of the building’s area is devoted to wholesale showrooms. As a design center, the Merchandise Mart hosts 16 major trade shows, co-produces 15 more and also houses more than 300 conferences, seminars and special events a year.
External Links
- The web site of Merchandise Mart Properties (http://www.merchandisemart.com/index.html)
- The web site of The Merchandise Mart (http://www.merchandisemart.com/mmart/)
References
- Chappell, Sally A. Kitt, Architecture and Planning of Graham, Anderson, Probst and White, 1912 - 1936:Transforming Tradition, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL 1992