Olympia Centre, Mixed-use skyscraper in River North, Chicago, United States.
Olympia Centre is a 221-meter (725 ft) skyscraper in Chicago's River North neighborhood, rising 63 floors with a granite facade that narrows toward the top. The lower floors hold retail shops and offices, while the upper floors are taken up by private condominiums.
Construction started in 1981 and finished in 1986, during a period when River North was shifting from a largely industrial area to a mixed-use neighborhood. The tower's completion helped set the tone for the area's transformation into one of Chicago's busiest districts.
The Consulate General of Japan is located on the eleventh floor, giving the building a quiet diplomatic role alongside its residential and office functions. Most people walking through the ground-floor shops have no idea that an official Japanese diplomatic post sits just above them.
The ground-floor shops are open to anyone during regular business hours, but the office and residential floors above are not accessible to the general public. The building sits close to the Magnificent Mile, so it fits easily into a walk through that part of downtown Chicago.
The granite cladding on the facade was quarried in Sweden but cut and finished in Italy before being shipped to Chicago. Almost no one who walks past the building realizes that its outer skin traveled through two countries before arriving on a Chicago street.
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