Newport Tower (Jersey City) World Financial Center in Manhattan. The Newport Tower is a modern-style building. It is similar in appearance to the world-famous Willis Tower, (formerly known as "Sears Tower") in Chicago, Illinois. The tower received a facelift in the summer of 2005; wooden panels have been installed on the lobby walls, and LCD advertisement screens added to the elevators. The colonnade in front of the building has been removed in July 2008. A new elevator management system, Schindler ID, was installed in the building in September 2009. On October 19, 2011, Multi-Employer Property Trust purchased the Newport Tower from Brookfield Properties for
Merchandise Building forces with Sears-Roebuck & Co. of Chicago in forming a 50/50 ownership in a new company, Simpsons-Sears Limited. The new firm took control of Simpson's catalogue and mail-order business and would open new Sears-style department stores in markets not already served by Simpsons. It was seen as better suited to take on competition with the strong T. Eaton Co. catalogue business and to use Sears marketing principles to expand into smaller Canadian rural and suburban markets. The Toronto Mail Order Building complex - which eventually came to be known by the less cumbersome name of "the Mutual Street Building", continued