Fire and LaSalle Bank Building officials were on hand Monday to unveil state-of-the-art fire safety equipment that they hope will prevent future fires.
| Images: New Safety Features | Fire Scene | Fire Investigation | Firefighter Injured
An electrical problem on the 29th floor of the building triggered last year's blaze, which caused severe damage all the way down to the 25th floor. No one was injured in the fire.
"It's almost like a different building," said Chicago Fire Department Capt. John Collins. "From that night to this night, it is a different building."
NBC5's Charlie Wojciechowski reported that Fire Commissioner Cortez Trotter toured the renovated 29th floor, which is now equipped with security cameras to color-coded and easily identifiable stairwells. There are also two sets of smoke detectors, one below the ceiling and one hanging above the ceiling to detect the fire no matter where it is.
"If we would have had the above-ceiling smoke detectors, we would have known about the problem very early on," said Greg Prather of Jones Lang LaSalle, the building's management company.
The safety features continue throughout the building, right down to a high-tech command center that can zoom in to show firefighters where the problem is, and will print up that floor plan so it is ready to hand to firefighters when they arrive.
"We felt it was worth the investment to be able to hand the fire department a floor plan showing them exactly where the problem is,'" Prather said.
The multi-million dollar retrofit of the high-rise had been started before the fire, and was set for completion by 2009. The timetable was moved up after the blaze. The retrofitting included more than 28 miles of pipe and more than 12,000 sprinkler heads.
"That was the best part about the whole deal," Collins said. "Nobody got hurt, they fixed the building, and it cost them a few bucks -- it was great."
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