LaSalle Bank Corp.’s corporate headquarters in downtown Chicago was closed Tuesday after a five-alarm fire damaged the 45-story building and injured dozens of people Monday night.
More than 3,000 people work in the building. The fire broke out at 6:30 p.m. central standard time on the 29th floor, which houses the ABN Amro Holding NV unit’s trust operations.
The building, at 135 South LaSalle Street in Chicago’s Loop district, also houses marketing and administration functions, as well as “a number of front-office customer-facing businesses,” Lewis Rosenthal, a LaSalle executive vice president and the head of its business continuity efforts, said on a media conference call Tuesday.
Mr. Rosenthal, who also runs LaSalle’s technology, infrastructure and operations functions, said all the business functions, including the trust department, were moved elsewhere Tuesday and were open for business.
LaSalle’s 140 automated teller machines and all of its branches, except for the one at 135 LaSalle Street, were operational Tuesday, he said.
The crisis management committee immediately responded to the blaze Monday night and, after checking that all employees had been evacuated, began examining how to continue operating its various businesses, Mr. Rosenthal said. “We drill this all the time. We model. We run scenarios.”
No customer records, data, or assets were affected by the fire, and the building did not house any back-office functions, he said. “Customer records are backed up. All of the data we have for every one of the accounts is backed up.”
Earlier Tuesday, a LaSalle spokesman, who spoke via cell phone, said his own department would temporarily move to ABN Amro Plaza on 540 West Madison Street in Chicago, where LaSalle’s technology operations are based.
Mr. Rosenthal said none of LaSalle’s employees were seriously injured, though several firefighters were. The Chicago Tribune reported Tuesday that 22 firefighters were among the 37 people injured.
It is unclear when the building will reopen; as of Tuesday afternoon it was still under the control of the Chicago Fire Department, who were investigating the cause of the fire.
LaSalle has $106.6 billion of assets and $36.4 billion of deposits. Its Dutch parent has focused its U.S. banking efforts on the Midwest for several years. In 2001, it bought Michigan National Corp. and sold its East Coast unit, European American Bank of Uniondale, N.Y., to Citigroup Inc. It also owns the $44.2 billion-asset Standard Federal Bank in Troy, Mich.
