Here’s a story of how you probably don’t want to be a professional services firm located in a building filled with professional services firms that suddenly becomes known as the “Payless Building.”

Fortunately, we dodged a bullet—getting out of the building before the Payless moniker took over—but I’ve always felt bad for the professional services firms who remained behind, although many have left since.

For 13 years, from 1989 through 2003, we called the 9th floor of 444 N. Michigan Avenue home. I loved the location, and it was a great step up from 1 Illinois Center (where we spent our first 20 months) and 500 N. Michigan Avenue, where I’d been the general manager of Doremus & Company from 1987-88.

Directly across the street from the Chicago Tribune, we were in the middle of the 24/7 Michigan Avenue hub-bub, from crowds of shoppers to protesters to the ground-level saxophonist constantly playing his seemingly only song, “The Flintstones,” to the “Festival of Lights” parade and more. I once saw a lonely-looking Princess Diana riding alone in the back of a limo headed south on the avenue near the Wrigley Building.

December 16, 1996, was a glorious day when Starbucks opened in the 444 building, thanks to then building manager Rudy Banducci, no longer necessitating car stops at an Ohio Street Starbucks on my commute into Chicago every day. (By the way, the Starbucks in our current building, 233 N. Michigan Avenue, was the first Starbucks in Chicago, opening around 1988.)

As our lease neared expiration circa 2002, my feelings about the building changed. The building was under new ownership (from New York) and new management, and, boy, did their tone with tenants change. Seemingly uninterested in re-upping literally anyone, management drove many tenants—and finally us— to new buildings. We would have loved to stay, but I must say I can’t imagine being happier than where we are now.

A year or so after we moved out, 444 revamped its ground floor appearance, shifting the lobby entrance to the north side and creating a large retail space between the Starbucks and lobby entrances. After hearing a number of potential tenant names mentioned in the press, one Saturday I read in Crain’s Chicago Business that the new tenant would be Payless Shoes. Within weeks, their sign was up, as was a new neon-lighted and quite garish “444″ sign extending the length of the Michigan Avenue side of the building.

Though ensconced in 233 N. Michigan Avenue, I still stayed in touch with some 444 tenants, and I remember a number of conversations with disaffected tenants (law firms, ad agencies, PR firms) incredulous over the building’s selection of Payless as its central retail tenant and bothered by both the prospect of and humor in providing premium-priced services in a building with a discount image.