Google's Thompson Center Chicago: Name Kept, Opens 2027

After years of construction cones and sidewalk detours, the Thompson Center is coming back to life. Google confirmed this week that the historic Loop building will keep its name and serve as the tech company’s Chicago headquarters when it opens in 2027.

Google spokesperson Ryan Lamont confirmed in an email Tuesday that the building will go by Thompson Center, shortened from its official name, the James R. Thompson Center. The decision honors the building’s legacy, Lamont said.

For Chicagoans who have watched workers dismantle and rebuild the iconic structure over the past two years, the name confirmation arrives alongside a clearer picture of what the finished product will look like. Google launched a new website this week advertising leasing opportunities and sharing fresh renderings of the renovated space.

The renderings show a multi-terrace atrium filled with greenery and ample seating, with retail and restaurant space lining the ground level. A second-floor outdoor terrace wraps around the Randolph and Clark corner, and updated landscaping softens the streetscape. Crucially, the atrium will remain publicly accessible, preserving one of the original building’s defining civic gestures.

The Thompson Center’s story stretches back to 1985, when it opened as the State of Illinois Center. Designed by postmodern architect Helmut Jahn, the building drew equal parts admiration and criticism from the start. Its sweeping glass facade and cylindrical atrium made it one of the most visually striking public buildings in the city. It was renamed in honor of former Gov. James R. Thompson in 1993.

For decades after, the building housed state government offices while quietly accumulating costly infrastructure problems. Several attempts to sell it went nowhere before Google struck a deal in July 2022, agreeing to purchase the building for $105 million after redevelopment by The Prime Group and Capri Investment Group.

Demolition of the exterior began in 2024, and commuters near City Hall and the Clark/Lake CTA station have navigated the sprawling construction site ever since. The old metal and glass siding is gone. A new glass facade, more opaque than the original, is going up in its place. Lamont said base building work is expected to wrap by late 2026, with interior construction running through 2027.

Google plans to bring approximately 2,000 employees to the building once it opens.

The company is also inviting businesses to lease space inside the Thompson Center. Fourteen retail spots totaling about 60,000 square feet are available across the ground and concourse levels, with plans to fill them with a mix of food and retail tenants. Google is working with CBRE on office leasing and Savills on retail leasing.

The project carries real weight for the Loop, which has spent the past several years absorbing the shocks of remote work trends and shifting foot traffic. A 2,000-person tech workforce arriving at one of the most transit-accessible corners of downtown, just steps from Clark/Lake, is the kind of anchor a neighborhood commercial corridor can actually build around.

But beyond the economic math, there’s something worth watching in how Google is handling the building’s identity. Keeping the Thompson Center name when the company could have easily rebranded the space signals at least an awareness of what the building means to Chicago. The publicly accessible atrium reinforces that message. A tech headquarters that doubles as a civic space sits differently than one that simply claims a city block.

Jahn, who died in a cycling accident in 2021, never saw his most controversial Chicago commission reach this chapter. The building he designed was loud, ambitious, and frequently mocked. It was also unmistakably Chicago, the kind of swing-for-the-fences architecture that divides people precisely because it refuses to be ignored.

Whether the renovated version earns the same passionate response is an open question. The new renderings suggest something polished and contemporary, softened from the original’s blunt futurism. But the bones are still Jahn’s, the name still connects to the building’s history, and the doors will still open to the public.

Construction continues. Spring is arriving. By the time work wraps later this year, Chicago will have a clearer sense of what the Thompson Center is becoming.