Property Info
- 720,979 total square feet of space
- Renovated in 1990
- Awarded an Energy Star label for operating efficiency
- Institutionally owned
The George W. Dunne Cook County Office Building is located at 69 West Washington at the southwest corner of Dearborn and Washington Streets in the heart of Chicago’s central business district. The building offers direct access to downtown Chicago’s popular underground pedestrian pedway, a year-round, weather-proof tunnel system. The pedway is expansive, conveniently connecting the Cook County Office Building with the following city locales and assets: CTA subway trains; retail shopping; other government offices, including the Richard J. Daley Center, Thompson Center. and the Chicago City Hall/Cook County Building; the financial district; business clubs; cultural institutions; and numerous dining options. The centrally situated Cook County Office Building provides robust access to hundreds of Cook County, City and State tenants who commute to work, and also the thousands of County citizens who use the various services and departments at the building on a daily basis.
The 37-story building, which was purchased by the county in 1997, was designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill in 1963, completed in 1965. Features include floor-to-ceiling windows that create extraordinary interior light, a productive work environment and wide-open views of the city. A classic example of international-style architecture, the 720,979-square-foot building contains 650,000 square feet of office space, 23,000 square feet of retail space, 18,000 square feet of storage space and a 9-story annex, affectionately referred to as the “bustle.” Built primarily of poured concrete, the unique “waffle-iron” aesthetic was the first concrete structure of its kind to be built with a column-free design, which affords extremely efficient, practical office layouts for the 20,000 square foot floor plates. The impressive, 26-foot-high, floor-to-ceiling, glass-enclosed lobby, clad in Italian travertine, is home to Citicorp’s retail banking facility and provides direct escalator access to the underground pedestrian pedway system. The Cook County Office Building also has the distinction of being home to the world-class sculpture by Spanish artist Joan Miro, “Miro’s Chicago,” which was unveiled in 1981 and is located in the building’s adjacent western plaza overlooking Chicago’s famous Picasso sculpture.
The Cook County Office Building is also home to the Cook County/City of Chicago Child Care Center, the only day-care facility located in the Central Business District with two outdoor play areas. Designed to meet or exceed all criteria set forth by the National Association for the Education of Young Children, the facility also provides special enrichment programs such as health and wellness programs, computers, music, singing and rhythm instruments, and space for creative movement and physical fitness. The day-care center services not only Cook County and City of Chicago employees, but it is also open to enrollment by community families as well.
