[davidf560]

The whole story as presented in the article and comments here is a bit misleading. None of these buildings were "abandoned", at least not in any practical sense. The buildings documented here were old (from the 70s I believe) and full of asbestos and things like that and had really outlived their usefulness, and the very large piece of land they occupied had become extremely valuable. The buildings were still fully occupied when the company decided to sell the campus and relocate to new headquarters in downtown Chicago and move manufacturing to a new facility in Elgin.

Once sold, the company moved out. Shortly after, demolition began, and that's when these pictures were taken. The damage is from demolition, not from the normal "abandoned for 10 years deterioration" you see on those Urban Explorer Youtube videos. People worked in these buildings just a few years ago, and a lot of them had been remodeled somewhat recently and were actually pretty nice inside. The 6-story building with the large atrium was newer than the other parts and is still there and the new owner/developer is hoping to continue to use it as an office building (last I heard anyway).

Motorola also still occupies the 14-story building that used to be the world headquarters as well as another large building on the property. The real story here is much more mundane: a big company sold off some valuable real estate as part of a move to chase a younger workforce in downtown Chicago (jury's still out on that decision, especially with a more WFH-focused future).