Fountain Place
| Fountain Place | |
|---|---|
 | |
 | |
| Alternative names | First Interstate Tower Allied Bank Tower |
| General information | |
| Type | Commercial offices |
| Location | 1445 Ross Ave Dallas, Texas |
| Coordinates | 32°47′04″N 96°48′08″W / 32.7844°N 96.8023°W |
| Construction started | 1984 |
| Completed | 1986 |
| Owner | Goddard Investment Group |
| Height | |
| Roof | 219.5 m (720 ft) |
| Technical details | |
| Floor count | 63 |
| Floor area | 111,480 m2 (1,200,000 sq ft) |
| Lifts/elevators | 30 |
| Design and construction | |
| Architect(s) | Pei Cobb Freed & Partners Dan Kiley |
| Developer | Criswell Companies |
| Structural engineer | CBM Engineers, Inc. Cosentini Associates |
| Main contractor | The Beck Group |
| References | |
| [1][2][3][4] | |
Fountain Place is a 60-story late-modernist skyscraper in downtown Dallas, Texas. Standing at a structural height of 720 ft (220 m), it is the fifth-tallest building in Dallas, and the 15th-tallest in Texas.
Design
Original plans for the project called for twin towers, with the second tower rotated 90 degrees from the original, to be built on an adjacent block, but with the collapse of the Texas oil, banking and real estate industry and the savings and loan scandal of in the 1980s, the project was never completed.
The building was designed by the award winning architects Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, with Henry N. Cobb as design partner, and was completed in 1986.
The building gets its name from the array of 172 dancing fountains in the plaza at its base with a fully automated water show as the centerpiece. The fountains were an extreme undertaking and the first concept of their kind on such a large scale[citation needed]. WET Design company was brought in to facilitate the project; it was the company's first major project since the founders left Disney to team up. WET collaborated with the firm of I. M. Pei as well as landscape architects Dan Kiley and Peter Ker Walker to create the waterscape of Fountain Place (at Allied Bank Tower) in Dallas, Texas. The project showed the first use of WET's patented open-jointed paving in a fountain where shots of water appear from the openings in the plaza's surface. After completion of Fountain Place, WET went on to design other notable fountains such as the Bellagio fountains in Las Vegas and The Dubai Fountain.
The building is known for its unique architecture—it was designed as a large, multi-faceted prism. Its various slanted sides cause the building to have a completely different profile from all directions.
History
At the time of its opening it was the second tallest building in the city behind Bank of America. However, upon completion of Comerica Bank Tower and Chase Tower it fell to fourth. Renaissance Tower then added an antenna spire atop of its roof to vault itself back into skyline notoriety and supplant Fountain Place to fifth tallest.
On September 24, 2009 the FBI arrested 19-year-old Hosam Maher Husein Smadi of Jordan for an alleged attempt to bomb the skyscraper. Smadi was living and working in Italy, Texas, and had been under FBI investigation for some time.[5]
Tenants
Fountain Place is the headquarters of Tenet Healthcare. Tenet Healthcare announced in 2008 that it was moving from the northern suburban areas of Dallas to Fountain Place due to high gasoline prices and the revitalization of downtown Dallas. Trevor Fetter, the company's then president and chief executive, credited the Dallas Area Rapid Transit light rail and the concept of an urban location for his decision to move to Downtown Dallas.
Fountain Place contains many financial institutions and offices including Wells Fargo. Originally cited as First Interstate Tower or Allied Bank Tower, it was after the 1988 merger of Wells Fargo that the building became known as Fountain Place, becoming the only major skyscraper in Dallas not to lend its name to the occupying bank.
Fountain Place also serves as Region 6 headquarters for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Hunt Oil operated out of Fountain Place until they built new headquarters across the street in 2007.
In popular culture
In seasons 10–14 of Dallas, exterior shots of the building were used for the offices of Bobby Ewing's Petro Group Dallas, which later became Ewing Oil.
The building's dancing fountains were used for scenes in the movie Blank Check.
Exterior shots of the building are seen in the USA Network TV series Queen of the South.
See also
- List of tallest buildings in Dallas
- Tallest buildings in Texas
- List of tallest buildings in the United States
References
- ^ Fountain Place at Emporis
- ^ Fountain Place at Glass Steel and Stone (archived)
- ^ "Fountain Place". SkyscraperPage.
- ^ Fountain Place at Structurae
- ^ Jason Trahan; Todd J. Gillman; Scott Goldstein (26 September 2009). "Dallas Bomb Plot Suspect Told Landlord He Was Moving Out". The Dallas Morning News. Archived from the original on 2009-09-24. Retrieved 2010-04-08.
Further reading
- Dupré, Judith (2008). Skyscrapers (second ed.). New York: Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, Inc. pp. 92–93. ISBN 1-57912-787-8.