In July 2005, the Art Institute of Chicago announced plans for the demolition of the Kenneth Sawyer Goodman Memorial Theatre in order to make room for additional gallery and administrative spaces for the museum. The Goodman Theatre had been a museum department from its founding in 1925 to 2000, when the company became an independent producing organization and moved to a new facility in Chicago's theatre district. Since then, the building had been an unproductive appendage to the Art Institute, but numerous attempts to tear it down had been met with resistance by architectural preservationists who felt that the structure, by noted Chicago architect Howard Van Doren Shaw, was historically significant and warranted landmark status.