Chicago Area Local News

CHICAGO (CBS) ― The Sears Tower will be known as the Willis Tower in a few months, and Chicagoans are in disbelief a day after the announcement.

As CBS 2's Mike Parker reports, the iconic tower of steel and glass has anchored the city's skyline for more than 35 years, and almost looks like it was constructed in tribute to the city's big shoulders. But with the name change looming, few Chicagoans seemed to be willing to shrug it off. 

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The managers of the iconic building announced on Thursday that its name will be changed to the Willis Tower, effective this summer. The London-based insurance broker Willis Group Holdings Ltd. announced Thursday that 500 of its employees now scattered throughout Chicago are moving in, and will gain naming rights as part of the deal with the owners of the building.

On Thursday, all through the floors of the Sears Tower, the phones jangled all day with complaints.

"It's definitely controversial, I know. Not everyone is going to agree with it," one staffer in the building said to a caller.

CBS 2 received numerous e-mails following the announcement, with nary a supportive comment.

"I think it is sad in our time that history has no meaning. When I think of the Sears Tower I recall what a wonder it was when it was built. Another great architecture achievement for Chicago," wrote Gail Brodie. "Now it's not about anything but the ego that follows the money. Maybe they ought to sell the credit for the telephone from Bell to anyone who can pay."

"Would New York change the name of the Chrysler Building or the Empire State Building?" wrote Tom Best. "It's just as ridiculous to change the name of the Sears Tower."

And newspaper headlines, blogs and everyday Chicagoans summed up the sentiment by quoting the classic sitcom "Diff'rent Strokes" – "What you talkin' about, Willis?"

Several Facebook groups have cropped up in protest of the decision, including two named "Save the Sears Tower" and another called "People against the name changing of the Sears Tower.'" As of Friday morning, all the groups had more than 200 members.

Willis Chief Executive Officer Joe Plumeri said moving into the soon-to-be-former Sears Tower was a good deal for the company.

"There's a lot of vacant space in the city," Plumeri said. "We wanted to become a really big part of the city not only in terms of the economics of the city, but also to participate in the reinvigoration of a landmark, iconic building."

Willis paid $14.50 per square foot for the space, a bargain for downtown Chicago real estate. It will fill 140,000 square feet of space.

The Sears Tower was completed in 1973, and as the tallest building in the world until it was overtaken by the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in 1996. The Sears Tower remains the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere.

The building was commissioned by Sears, Roebuck & Co., but the retail giant hasn't had offices there since 1992, and its naming rights expired in 2003. Citing this reason, Mayor Richard M. Daley on Thursday came out in support of the idea to change the name.

But the original owners of the building didn't share the sentiment.

"We're saddened," Kim Freely, a spokeswoman for Sears Holdings Corp., said Thursday. "We believe that Chicagoans will continue to refer to the building as Sears Tower."

The question, though, is if people will popularly refer to the building as anything other than the Sears Tower, said Tim Samuelson, the city of Chicago's cultural historian.

"I have a feeling that the name 'Sears' is going to be hard to lose," Samuelson said. "Not necessarily that anyone is actively fighting it. It's just that people are so used to that building with that distinctive presence being called the Sears Tower."

The Sears Tower name will likely stick because that's what the building was called when it reigned as the tallest building in the world, Samuelson said.

"People driving into Chicago from far away, out in cornfields," he said. "The first sight of this hazy image of this stepped building, you look and it's the Sears Tower. It's the only thing you see. You call it out."

But Mike Kazmierczak of U.S. Equities, who negotiated the deal for the landlord, said despite all the protests, the change would prove to be worth it.

"Like any change, it may take some time for Chicagoans to get used to this, but in the end, this is a great thing for the building, and for the city of Chicago," he said.

CBS 2's Mike Parker and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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