Willis Tower new competition by retailing giants such as Kmart, Kohl's, and Walmart. The fortunes of Sears & Roebuck declined in the 1970s as the company lost market share; its management grew more cautious. Nor did the Sears Tower draw as many tenants as Sears had hoped. The tower stood half-vacant for a decade as a surplus of office space was erected in Chicago in the 1980s. In 1990, the law firm of Keck, Mahin & Cate decided to move out of its space in the Sears Tower and into a development that would become 77 West Wacker Drive, rebuffing Sears' attempts
The Gogo Building district along the Chicago River. There are two large red brick buildings along the Chicago River just south of where the river splits, formerly known as the Butler Brothers Warehouse buildings. They were both designed for the Butler Brothers Company, a mail order company, similar to Montgomery Ward's and Sears & Roebuck at the time. The northern structure was designed by Daniel Burnham, a famous Chicago architect, with its completion date being 1913, a year after Burnham’s death. This building only stood for 7 years before being completely demolished and rebuilt exactly as it stood before by the Chicago Union