Will a vacant modernist bank in Skokie designed by SOM be razed or reused?

A shuttered midcentury Skokie bank, designed by a Skidmore Owings & Merrill team and led by famed Sears Tower architect Bruce Graham, is for sale.

But does its future hold reuse — or demolition?

Colliers International is looking for a buyer for the former Bank of America branch, 4747 Dempster St.

The company describes the site as having "versatile development potential, including retail, multi-family, office, medical, or a combination of these uses."

This is true. The two-story vacant building and its separate drive-in facility sit on a well-landscaped 3-acre site on a busy North Shore corridor, not far from the Edens Expressway, the CTA's Skokie Swift train station and the village's downtown.

And yet, the bank is far more than that.

Built in 1968 as Skokie Federal Savings, the broad, horizontal building is a superlative example of modernist architecture: bold, confident and not a wasted line or superfluous element.

The connection to Graham makes the structure all the more important. The legendary SOM design principal gave Chicago (and the nation) some of the finest midcentury buildings, including the John Hancock Building, the Inland Steel Building and, of course, the Sears.

While the bank isn't being marketed as a teardown, it's worth noting Skokie doesn't have a landmark ordinance that would protect the building from demolition.

"This is one of the more stunning modernist buildings on the North [Shore]," urban planner Jim Peters said. Peters included the bank in a survey of modern suburban buildings in 2006, as part of a class he taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

"It's just a beautiful setting as well as a beautiful building," Peters said. "And it's a shame to think about it vanishing and being replaced by, you know, a strip mall or another box bank or something like that."

‘A very elegant building’

If you're in the area, the 58-year-old bank at Dempster Street and Skokie Boulevard is worth checking out.

It's a good-looking steel-and-glass building — painted white and not the black or dark gray found on most Miesian modern structures.

A dozen exterior steel columns do most of the work supporting the structure. Both floors have ribbons of recessed floor-to-ceiling windows.

Clear plate glass was used on the first floor, according to the building's original design, while bronze-tinted glass was installed on the second floor.

And if the building looks more like a corporate headquarters than a suburban bank, there's a reason.

Skokie Federal was built before Illinois allowed branch banking. That meant a bank had to have a single location that was also its headquarters, with room enough to service customers, while providing office space and amenities for everyone from tellers to executives.

SOM designed the facility with a first-floor banking hall, teller counters, offices, conference room, board room and accounting space.

The second floor was set aside as rented office space. A basement level had a vault, safety deposit boxes, storage, restrooms, kitchen and lounge space and mechanical equipment.

As a result, Skokie Federal is fairly large at almost 34,000 square feet. With its landscaped grounds and a big parking lot, the property takes up nearly a block.

SOM brought some of its best talent to the project. SOM Design Partner William Dunlap led the project under Graham — the two would work together on the Sears Tower — along with associate partner Jack Train, who worked on the firm's U.S. Air Force Academy commission, according to records found by the architecture firm's librarian Karen Widi.

The result?

"It's a well-proportioned, very elegant building," architect David Fleener, chairman of DOCOMOMO Chicago, the local chapter of the international group dedicated to the documentation and conservation of buildings and sites of the modern movement.

"It's a very, very nice building worth preserving," he said.

Skokie Federal has a near twin — also designed by SOM — in Bronzeville.

After sitting empty for years, the building at 467 E. 31st St., was rehabbed by architects Johnson & Lee and reopened last year as the Bronzeville Health Center, a health care facility that's part of Cook County's Provident Hospital.

The 26,000-square-foot building was built in 1959 as office space for Illinois Bell. Then it spent years as the Lake Meadows Professional Building, before closing down.

The right buyer could find a way to reuse the marvelous former Skokie bank too. The property sits in a tax-increment financing district, which could generate funds to help cover rehab costs.

Peters, a past CEO of the preservation group Landmarks Illinois, said a good case could be made for placing the building on the National Register of Historic Places.

A listening would make the building eligible for rehab tax credits.

"That would be a great thing for owners to explore," he said.

Here's hoping it happens. To lose the building would be a waste.