Johnson Publishing Company building up for sale again

Johnson Publishing Building

The historic Johnson Publishing Company building is up for sale again amid a construction boom on Michigan Avenue.

The last time the former home of Ebony and Jet magazines was up for sale, a developer wanted to demolish it, forcing city officials to move quickly in designating it as an official landmark.

According to Crain’s Chicago Business and CBS 2 Chicago, 3L Real Estate, which bought the building in 2017 for $10 million, has put the former home of Ebony and Jet back on the market after spending $37 million to rehab and convert the building into 150 apartments.

The firm did not give a price for the building, but with new skyscrapers going up in the area, the iconic building could be a catch for hungry developers.

But the former home of Ebony and Jet magazines cannot be demolished, nor its exterior altered, as it is an official Chicago Landmark.

Located on prime real estate at 820 S. Michigan, the iconic building was nearly demolished years ago when a developer wanted to build a skyscraper on the property.

In 2017, after seven years of being vacant, one developer seeking to buy the building wanted to demolish it and build a skyscraper during a development boom in the South Loop. Back then, plans for skyscrapers were popping up. Plans were in the works for Essex on the Park, a 56-story apartment complex that will eventually go up just yards away from the Johnson Publishing Company building at 820 S. Michigan Ave. Further south, developers were moving forward in building the 76-story luxury glass Nemo apartment tower, the largest skyscraper south of the Willis Tower.

When Rahm Emanuel was mayor, Alderman Sophia King (4th Ward) in 2017 filed an emergency request to have the Johnson Publishing Company building placed on the list of Chicago Landmarks. Research and studies were done. Meetings with Historic Preservation Chicago were held as city officials rushed to protect the only building on Michigan Avenue built and designed by a Black man.

On December 17, 2017, the Commission on Chicago Landmarks (CCL) designated the Johnson Publishing Company building a Chicago Landmark, capping a months-long process with heavy support from Alderman King and Mayor Emanuel.

The designation protects Chicago Landmarks like the Johnson Publishing Company building from future demolition. However, developers can gut the building’s interior to serve a new purpose. Today, the exterior of the Johnson Publishing building remains the same with the iconic Ebony /Jet sign at the top. The garage door leading to John H. Johnson’s private parking space is also still there, years after being the only structure in or near the Loop with a driveway accessible from Michigan Avenue.

Four years after the historic designation in 2017, a city worker installed the official plaque after the Chicago Crusader reported that the historic structure was still without an official marker that is placed on all Chicago Landmarks.

According to city records, it took two years to build the Johnson Publishing Company building before it was completed in 1971. Years after using his mother’s furniture money to create his media empire, John H. Johnson hired famed Black architect John Moutoussamy to design the 11-story building, which at the time cost $8 million to build.

Before that, Johnson Publishing Company operated out of three locations on the South Side, including the historic Supreme Life Insurance Building on 35th and King Drive.

To purchase the building of a white funeral home at 1820 S. Michigan Ave., John H. Johnson had a white friend deal with the owner while he posed as a Black custodian who dressed in work clothes to inspect the building. John H. Johnson bought that building in trust for $52,000 so no one could identify the purchaser, and Johnson spent $200,000 renovating it.

John H. Johnson died in 2005. His wife, Eunice, who started the Fashion Fair cosmetics line, died in 2010. Ebony, Jet, Fashion Fair and the company’s radio station WJPC operated out of the Johnson Publishing Company building, which served as the company’s headquarters.

Johnson’s daughter Linda Johnson Rice sold the building in 2010 to Columbia College for $8 million. 3L Real Estate bought it for $10 million in 2017. In 2019, Johnson Publishing Company was dissolved after it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Today, Ebony and Jet are owned by former NBA star Ulysses “Junior” Bridgeman, who bought the brands for $14 million in 2020.