The commercial property at Marina City was under the control of a bankruptcy trustee in June 1990, when another developer expressed interest in buying the property and making extensive changes.

Hiffman Schaffer Anderson Inc. proposed leasing the top ten stories of the office building to Marriott Corporation as an economy hotel for its Fairfield Inn chain. They wanted to demolish the unused skating rink and vacant theater building, replacing them with one-story glass retail buildings, each covering about 8,500 square feet. Similar glass-atrium entrances would be built on State and Dearborn Streets.

Metal screens would be put up at the base of both parking ramps. Along the south edge of the property, next to the river, a landscaped walkway would be the first to conform to proposed city guidelines for riverfront development. At the base of the west residential tower would be a new restaurant.

Although they had no control over the proposal, condo owners at Marina City got a preview in early June 1990. The Chicago Tribune described residents as generally supportive of the plans, although concerned they would be asked to pay for construction of the new entrances.

Said Mary Swain, a seven-year resident, “It certainly would improve property values. Marina City has a worldwide reputation, and its image is deteriorated. It needs to come back.”

Developers applied to the Chicago Plan Commission to allow a hotel to replace the office building. They planned to take over the property from the bankruptcy court by the end of 1990 and have most of the construction completed within a year.

Daniel G. Anderson, president of Hiffman Schaffer Anderson, told the Chicago Tribune in July, “The idea is to take what has become in recent years a rather drab and uninviting retail and office development within the complex and convert it into an exciting facility that will draw more people to the city’s downtown riverfront.”

In 1990, Marina City architect Bertrand Goldberg was 77 years old and he was fighting the proposed changes – especially the part about tearing down his beloved theater building. Paraphrased by Chicago Tribune architecture critic Paul Gapp, Goldberg said it made no “esthetic, functional or urbanistic sense.”

Bertrand Goldberg (1913-1997) in 1980.

Gapp lamented, “Disgracefully poor maintenance has left the plaza and the base elements of Marina City’s structures in grimy, crumbling condition for nearly a decade.”

Goldberg produced a 33-page document that challenged the redevelopment plans for a number of reasons, including “poor siting, ugly design, intrusion on open space, obscured sightlines, a clumsy traffic plan, ventilation problems, inappropriate landscaping and dubious economic planning.”

About the only thing Goldberg was ok with was the conversion of the office building to a hotel. As is common in commercial real estate, another architectural firm was hired to draft the redevelopment plans.

On Friday, September 21, the Chicago Plan Commission approved the proposal to build a two-story retail building near the east tower over space then occupied by the skating rink, convert the upper floors of the office building into a hotel, but keep the theater building. The commission ordered the developer to design the new additions to fit with Goldberg’s original plan.

The following Monday, the Chicago City Council Zoning Committee approved the plan by a 4-1 vote. The full council would vote on it on October 3.

5th ward Alderman Lawrence Bloom cast the one dissenting vote. He said the new retail space would “turn a much-photographed landmark into another shopping mall.”

However, with little public comment, the purchase of the commercial property at Marina City by Hiffman Schaffer Anderson did not happen. Later, Anderson would blame Bertrand Goldberg for the deal’s collapse. Specifically, his objection to tearing down the theater building, which Anderson said hampered rezoning that was needed for the project.

On November 21, 1990, Judge Richard L. Curry ordered the mortgage foreclosure judgment that had been pending since 1987. In early December 1990, it was announced the commercial property would go to the highest bidder at a sheriff’s sale the following year, sometime after February 26.

With interest, tax payments, and legal fees, the lien on the property had swelled from $12.5 million to $23 million. Until the sale took place, a receiver would be appointed to run the property.

Marina City apartment converted to weapons bunker

It was May 1991. The Gulf War had been over for a few months. The bad guys that Chicago police chased were now gang members. In the last three months, the Gang Crimes Section had seized about 1,500 weapons. On May 3, police raided a Marina City apartment and seized about 250 guns, the largest single seizure of illegal weapons in Chicago. They included handguns and assault weapons.

Police said one of the bedrooms in the two-bedroom apartment had been turned into a weapons bunker. The walls were lined with heavy steel lockers and safes that contained guns and ammunition, protected by an electronic alarm system.

“Thank God they didn’t decide to stand us off,” Commander Robert Dart told the Chicago Tribune.

The owner of the two-bedroom apartment on the 44th floor was a gun collector, Francis Samp. The previous month, police had found 71 weapons in another apartment he had at Marina City.

He was charged with failure to register weapons. Also arrested was Charles Baumer, a former police officer who sublet from Samp.

Samp had lived at Marina City for 25 years without incident. He was an avid gun collector who was known to keep a Civil War-era cannon on his balcony, pointed toward the Chicago River.

That same month, a suspect in two 1989 rapes in downtown Chicago, who escaped earlier in the day from Cook County Jail, was captured at Marina City after allegedly attacking a woman in the lobby.

A security guard and a passerby heard the woman screaming in the hallway near the State Street entrance at about 6:30 p.m. on May 6. They found the woman struggling with Donald Williams, age 33. After Williams fled, the two men captured him and turned him over to police.

Williams was described by police as “very dangerous” and before his escape was being held on $2 million bond. During a five-day period in October 1989, he was accused of attacking three women at gunpoint in downtown elevators.