File:Carson Prie Scott and Company Store Building (Sullivan Center), State Street and Madison Street, Chicago, IL - 52901204286.jpg

English: Built in 1899 and expanded multiple times, this Chicago School and Sullivanesque-style building was designed by Louis Sullivan for the Schlesinger and Mayer Department Store, which was acquired by the Harry Gordon Selfridge and Company Department Store chain in 1904, whom subsequently sold it to Otto Young, with the building being rented by the Carson Prie Scott and Company Department Store starting in late 1904. The structure replaced a previous building on the site, which had been home to the Schlesinger and Mayer Department Store since 1881, and was known as the Bowen Building. The previous building was expanded and renovated multiple times during the 1890s by Adler and Sullivan, culminating in the construction of the oldest section of the present structure in 1898-1899, which was designed by Louis Sullivan, and stands nine stories tall with three bays on the Madison Street facade at the northeast corner of the complex. The next section to be completed, built in 1902-1904, is the corner section at State and Madison, which stands twelve stories tall, and was built just before the Schlesinger and Mayer Department Store was sold to Harry Gordon Selfridge, allowing Schlesinger and Mayer to retire. Selfridge briefly ran the operation, though it is uncertain as to why he quickly backed away and sold the building and the business shortly after purchasing both. The building was extended to the south by five additional bays along State Street in 1906 to house the growing operations of the Carson Prie Scott and Company, and again in 1961 by Holabird and Root, which added a three-bay, eight-story addition, filling in the gap between the existing complex and the adjacent Mentor Building, which was purchased and annexed by the Carson Prie Scott and Company. The complex served as the Carson Prie Scott and Company Department Store until it closed in 2007, as Bon-Ton Holdings, Inc., which had acquired Carson’s in 2006, did not see the value in keeping the location open. Bon-Ton went bankrupt in 2018, leading to the closure of all remaining Carson’s locations.

The building is mostly clad in terra cotta, with the intricate Sullivanesque ornament around the building’s one-over-one double-hung windows and Chicago windows,, in horizontal bands running around the facade, and at the top of the facade, including a decorative cornice at the loggia that wraps the exterior of the 12th floor, and features slender terra cotta columns with ornate capitals. The exterior is gridded like Sullivan’s earlier Guaranty Building, with a cylindrical corner tower that features engaged columns flanking the windows. The base of the building is clad in black-painted decorative cast iron, which employs many of Sullivan’s common floral and geometric motifs, with particularly intricate details around the semi-circular corner entrance, on the spandrels and columns, and on cartouches that adorn the awning over the Madison Street entrance. The loggia is absent from the 1906 and 1961 additions, with the 1961 addition featuring a simplified cast iron base. The only significant historic ornamental features absent from the base are the original chains that held up the Madison Street entrance canopy, which have been replaced with simpler, more conventional cables. Inside, the building has been heavily modified during several renovations, but maintains the original corner lobby with its wooden paneling, a staircase with decorative stringers and a metal balustrade, and decorative column pilasters.

Circa 1948, the building had been modified to remove the loggia from the original sections of the building, simplifying the exterior facade to better match the Daniel H. Burnham section dded in 1906. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places and was designated a Chicago Landmark in 1970, and was listed as a National Historic Landmark in 1975, and is a contributing structure in the Loop Retail Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1998. Between 2006 and 2010, the building’s historic exterior was fully restored to its original appearance, re-creating the 12th floor loggia and restoring the terra cotta and decorative cast iron, as well as the surviving original interior details. The building still presides over the corner of State and Madison, once known as the “World's Busiest Corner”, and presently houses a Target store on the lower floors, with offices above.