The formal entrance to the building is located on Jackson Boulevard, which in 1904 was a more important street than Michigan Avenue. The impressive entrance is believed to have been required by Daniel Burnham, head of the architectural firm and the building's main stockholder. The firm moved its offices to the fourteenth floor, and Burnham's descendants continued ownership in the building until 1952. The building is organized as a classicization of John Wellborn Root's Rookery. A street level two-story enclosed court designed in a symmetrical Beaux-Arts style was surmounted by an open lightwell which was surrounded by a ring of offices. By the formal arched entrance on Jackson Boulevard, a large staircase led to shops and a second-floor balcony. White-glazed terracotta sheaths the exterior façade and interior court and the lightwell is lined with white-glazed brick. Classical designs were used for the ornamental dentils, balusters, and column capitals. The building is completely steel-framed. In July 2012, the Santa Fe sign was replaced with an illuminated Motorola sign when Motorola Solutions began a lease on one floor of the building. The Santa Fe letters were given to the Illinois Railway Museum. After a four-year restoration, the sign was put on display at the museum in 2016. The building is significant as a historic site because Daniel Burnham and his staff made the 1909 Plan of Chicago in a penthouse on the northeast corner of the roof.
Tenants
The building was originally built as a railway exchange for the Santa Fe railway. Burnham & Company had offices on the 14th floor. Though the firm's successor, Graham, Anderson, Probst & White, has moved, a number of architectural organizations still practice there, including the Goettsch Partners, VOA Associates, Harding Partners, and the Chicago offices of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and landscape architecture and planning firm, Design Workshop. The building was purchased by the University of Notre Dame in 2006. The university's Mendoza College of Business began holding classes there in 2008. The installed a 320 square-foot model of Chicago in the building's atrium in 2009. It is updated annually to reflect architectural changes in the downtown area. In 2011, Anacostia Rail Holdings moved its corporate headquarters to the Railway Exchange Building.
