American Medical Association
AMA Plaza
Salas O’Brien provided mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and fire protection design for the AMA headquarters’ transition into the former IBM tower on the riverfront of downtown Chicago.
Our client
Founded in 1847 in Philadelphia, the American Medical Association (AMA) is an organization of American physicians that uses committees and scientific councils to carry out various educational, legislative, social, judicial, and public functions on behalf of the medical profession. The AMA also publishes multiple medical resources, including the preeminent Journal of the American Medical Association. Today, the organization is headquartered in Chicago and has well over 200,000 members.
Project highlights

Their challenge
When the AMA began planning for its headquarters’ move into the former IBM tower on the downtown Chicago riverfront, they engaged Salas O’Brien to provide various engineering design services to ensure the transition’s success. The project covered the build-out of collaborative spaces including open and private offices, conference suites, workrooms, an executive floor, and a distinctively designed conference floor.
Our solution
Our team provided mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and fire protection design services for the build-out, inclusive of a supplemental air handling system tied to the base building system that services the conference floor. Our work also covered a 1,000-square-foot server room with single-module UPS system, redundant in-row cooling units, hot aisle containment, air sampling smoke detection system, and a pre-action sprinkler system.
The results
Our work on this project helped make the AMA’s transition into its new headquarters, now referred to as AMA Plaza, a success.


