R.R. Donnelley & Sons Co. Calumet Plant
- Architect
- Howard Van Doren Shaw
- Year
- 1912
- City
- Chicago, IL
The R.R. Donnelley & Sons Calumet Plant, also known as the Lakeside Plant, was built between 1912 and 1929 at 350 E. Cermak Road to house the printing company's operations. Howard Van Doren Shaw designed it as a fireproof structure of poured reinforced concrete, carried by 4,675 steel-reinforced concrete columns sized to bear the tons of paper stock and heavy presses the plant required.
the building
Reinforced concrete frame. T.E. Donnelley approved Shaw's expensive-for-its-era concrete construction, with an open-shell concrete floor system, because the presses and paper needed that much support — support that later proved ideal for a very different kind of tenant.
significance
The plant closed in 1993 after Sears, Roebuck and Co. discontinued the mail-order catalog that had been its last major printing account. Retrofitted in 1999 and renamed the Lakeside Technology Center, it became the first and largest planned carrier hotel and data center in the United States, and it is a Chicago Landmark and NRHP-listed property, designated March 31, 2004.
nearby
- Wheeler-Kohn House
- Harriet F. Rees House
- William W. Kimball House
- Henry B Clarke House
- Chess Records Office and Studio
- John J. Glessner House