BMO Tower

Chicago, IL

BMO Tower

This 50-story office building on Chicago’s West Loop features a 40-ft-tall, column-free lobby creating a dramatic entrance for tenants and visitors, and shares its 2.2-acre site with a structured, publicly accessible plaza. The site also includes 300,000 ft² of structured parking over two below-grade levels. MKA’s structural design provided the open-lobby experience by transferring loads from nine tower columns on the east and west facades to three, two-story, V-Shaped sloping columns at the tower’s base. These unique columns, highlighted as architectural elements, were fabricated using Grade 65 Web Tailor-Made steel highlighted as distinctive architectural elements in the lobby. The project represents MKA’s first use of ArcelorMittal HISTAR®/ASTM A913 Grade 80 steel shapes. This higher-strength steel reduced the total structural steel in the tower’s columns by 20 percent.