[6] Northwestern University announced plans to demolish it and replace it with a medical research facility.

[7][8] Preservationists and prominent architects (including at least 6 Pritzker Prize winners) had called on Northwestern and the City of Chicago to save the building,[9] appealing to Chicago's "global reputation as a nurturer of bold and innovative architecture".

Jeanne Gang presented a reuse design incorporating the building into a skyscraper.

[5] Preservationists responded that Northwestern Memorial Hospital owns a two-square-block piece of vacant land directly across the street from Prentice, and within a potential skybridge's reach from the university's existing research building.

[11] This facility would replace the old Prentice Women's Hospital Building which later was demolished in September 2014 for new campus construction.