Park Tower (Chicago)

Park Tower
Park Tower seen from ground level.
General information
Status	Complete
Type	Hotel, Condominium
Location	Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Completed	2000
Height
Architectural	844 feet (257.3 m)
Technical details
Floor count	70
Floor area	835,624 sq ft (77,632.0 m2)
Design and construction
Architect	Lucien Lagrange Architects

Coordinates: 41°53′49″N 87°37′31″W / 41.89694°N 87.62528°W / 41.89694; -87.62528

Park Tower, located at 800 North Michigan Avenue in Chicago, in the U.S. state of Illinois, is a skyscraper that was completed in 2000. At 844 feet (257 meters) tall with 70 floors — 67 floors for practical use, it is the twelfth-tallest building in Chicago, the 43rd-tallest building in the United States, and the 83rd-tallest in the world by architectural detail. It is one of the world's tallest buildings to be clad with architectural precast concrete (the Transamerica Pyramid Building in San Francisco is taller). It is one of the tallest non-steel framed structures in the world—it is a cast-in-place concrete framed structure. This building was originally intended to be 650 ft (200 m) tall. But later, the ceiling heights were increased allowing it to reach 844 ft (257 m).

The building occupies a footprint of 28,000 square feet (2,600 square meters). Because of the small footprint and the fact that it is a non-steel-framed concrete building, this is the first building in the United States to be designed with a tuned mass damper from the outset. While other skyscrapers in America have anti-sway systems, they were always added later. A tuned mass damper counteracts wind effects on the structure. (The 300-ton damper is a massive steel pendulum hung from four cables inside a square cage.) Because of its massive weight, the damper has inertia that helps stabilize the building from swaying in the wind.