If you live out west or travel along the East-West Tollway, chances are you’ve come across that building in Naperville that looks … like … an … “N”?
Yup. The “N” Building, officially know as Metro West, is the second landmark in our summer scavenger hunt. And for some residents, the N-shaped building acts as an unofficial mascot for the western suburb.
It welcomes visitors with its unique façade and status as the city’s tallest building. And its impressive pedigreeadds a modern, creative flair to an historic region that dates back to the 1830s.
“It’s more of an artist statement,” said Sharon Schmid, 58, while walking in downtown Naperville, a few miles south of the building, with her husband, Bill. “It’s not like anything else. I’ve been here long enough that I take it for granted.”
Enigmatic Chicago architect Helmut Jahn designed the building, which opened in 1986.
And if you were able to photograph the building for our photo gallery, you saw the cube-like design with a slanting exterior that trails diagonally from left to right, forming the “N.”
Eric Stolpestad, 36, of Naperville remembers when the building opened almost 20 years ago. He believed the “N” stood for DuPage County’s oldest city.
“My dad always said, ‘Yeah, it was N for Naperville,'” Stolpestad said.
In reality, the sloping angles that create the “N” are a nifty coincidence, the result of Jahn’s flair for artistic, post-modern designs and a need to support a series of terraces on the building’s front side, said Sam Scaccia, executive vice president at Jahn’s architecture firm Murphy/Jahn.
But one of the city’s trustees noticed the “N” shape while reviewing the building plans and the name stuck, said Jeffrey Wingert, the just-retired manager of the CB Richard Ellis-owned building.
“I don’t know if the ‘N’ was in the back of Helmut Jahn’s mind when he came up with it,” Wingert said.
Originally called Two Energy Center, the 10-story, steel-frame building sits on a 9.2-acre plot of land on Shuman Road by Naperville’s northern border, near Warrenville. There were plans to build a second “N” building on that land. But the project was later abandoned.
But that doesn’t mean the one “N” doesn’t hold its own. Inside Metro West, you’ll find a two-story lobby with polished Italian Verde marble and large glass windows that allow for plenty of natural light.
With more than 205,000 square feet of space to rent, Metro West is home to a number of firms, including Laidlaw, the country’s largest school-bus company and parent company to Greyhound. The office building also offers clients a deli and a fitness center. But Roger Hart, a sales and marketing vice president with accounting firm CBIZ, says it’s the spacious offices and free parking that appeal most to him.
“It may be oddly designed, but it’s very functional,” said Hart, 62.
With 8,000 square feet for his employees and a corner office on the third floor, the sharp-edged building is quite comfortable, Hart says, and the fact that Jahn designed the building is a bonus.
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While drawing raves from its occupants, the “N” building is treated with a bit of ambivalence by some of its neighbors. Eric Stolpestad’s wife, Kimberly, couldn’t even remember what the building looked like. And she grew up in Naperville.
“I went to school in Lisle, so I had to pass it,” said Kimberly Stolpestad, 25, as she tried to remember. “It just blended in with the other office buildings.”
“You’d recognize it,” Eric Stolpestad said. “It’s the big, green building.”
“I’m colorblind,” his wife retorted.
“Oh, yeah.”
