AT Tower
Encyclopedia
The Ameritrust Tower is a brutalist
skyscraper
located in downtown
Cleveland, Ohio, United States. The building is 29 stories and rises to a height of 383 ft (117 m). It was designed by Marcel Breuer
and Hamilton Smith and completed in 1971
. The tower faces East 9th Street, and although plans called for a second mirror-image tower along Euclid Avenue, the second building was never constructed. It initially served as the headquarters for Ameritrust Bank before they merged with Society Bank, which is now part of Key Bank
.
In 2005, the tower, an adjacent historic George B. Post rotunda
, and several other surrounding structures were purchased for use as the consolidated administrative offices of Cuyahoga County
. On March 29, 2007, the Cuyahoga County Commissioners voted to demolish the tower and to replace it with a new building to be designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox
. The Cleveland Planning Commission approved demolition of the landmark Ameritrust Tower, to the chagrin of preservationists, who argued that the county would destroy a valued piece of architecture. In 2007, the Cuyahoga County Commissioners, claiming a desire to devote more of their energies for Medical Mart and Convention Center, decided to attempt to sell the complex to private developers. The County declared that it would not sell the property for less $35 million, which represented the purchase price plus expenditures made during removal of asbestos and the demolition of the tower's lobby which was begun but not completed. The removal of the asbestos and the now-defunct Cuyahoga County Administration center are now involved in Federal investigation on contractor paybacks. In a June 2008, Cleveland Magazine article, the county's own consultants told commissioners that it would be cheaper and more prudent to renovate the tower for its own use, but two commissioners, James "Jimmy" DiMora and Timothy Hagan, voted against renovation, while commissioner Peter Lawson-Jones supported renovation.
The only bid on the complex was submitted by the K&D group of Willoughby, Ohio
, for $35,005,000. K&D proposes converting the tower into a hotel and residential building, and plans to build new office space on the site as well. K&D Group owns Reserve Square
on East 12th and Chester, Reserve Square was known as The Park Apartments in 1973. Today this development has an Embassy Suites Hotel, an apartment complex, and is home of Cleveland's CBS
affiliate WOIO
. Source: Cleveland Plain Dealer 11/06/07. On 4/17/2008, Cuyahoga County Board of Commissioners approved the K&D group Bid and the deal should close within six months. K&D Group has enlisted the Cleveland Architectural firm of Westlake, Reed, Leskosky to design an office building. A Hotel operator will be announced in May or June according to the K&D Group. The Marcel Breuer tower will become a hotel/condo complex, there will be preservation and sandblasting of the famous portal windows.
On 7/16/2008, The K&D Group and the Cleveland firm of WRL-or Westlake, Reed, and Leskosky did a presentation of the site. The plan includes a 13-story glass and black granite building on East Ninth Street and Huron Avenue. WRL will become a tenant in the new building. The Marcel Breuer
Tower will house an Indigo Moon Hotel with condos in the building. The 1908 rotunda will house either a ballroom or a gallery. The plan must also be examined by the City of Cleveland's fine arts commission. Also an alleyway named Barn Court will have to also be vacated for new complex to be built and renovated. This project will be a $133-million dollar project. This project could begin as early as December 2008. Cleveland Plain Dealer 7/17/2008
was under construction, Jacobs proposed another tower on Cleveland's Public Square. The Tower would have been owned by the Ameritrust Corporation. They budgeted about $500,000,000 dollars for the project. The site would have been on Public Square.
The Architectural firm of Kohn Pedersen Fox
or KPF of New York City would have designed the new Ameritrust Tower. Coincidentally, KPF would have had designed the Cuyahoga County Administration Building which would have built at the old Ameritrust Tower (1971) site.
In 1992, Ameritrust merged with Society Bank (now KeyBank), obviating the need for the Ameritrust Tower.
Had the Ameritrust Tower had been built, The Tower would have had a curved glass curtain wall, a Hyatt Hotel, and high class shopping with names like Giorgio Armani and Versace as anchor tenants.
Brutalist architecture
Brutalist architecture is a style of architecture which flourished from the 1950s to the mid 1970s, spawned from the modernist architectural movement.-The term "brutalism":...
skyscraper
Skyscraper
A skyscraper is a tall, continuously habitable building of many stories, often designed for office and commercial use. There is no official definition or height above which a building may be classified as a skyscraper...
located in downtown
Downtown Cleveland
Downtown Cleveland is the central business district of the City of Cleveland and Northeast Ohio. Reinvestment in the area in the mid-1990s spurred a rebirth that continues to this day, with over $2 billion in residential and commercial developments slated for the area over the next few years...
Cleveland, Ohio, United States. The building is 29 stories and rises to a height of 383 ft (117 m). It was designed by Marcel Breuer
Marcel Breuer
Marcel Lajos Breuer , was a Hungarian-born modernist, architect and furniture designer of Jewish descent. One of the masters of Modernism, Breuer displayed interest in modular construction and simple forms.- Life and work :Known to his friends and associates as Lajkó, Breuer studied and taught at...
and Hamilton Smith and completed in 1971
1971 in architecture
The year 1971 in architecture involved some significant events.-Buildings:* Department of the Environment Building, three 20 story tower blocks atop a 5 story linking building, designed by Eric Bedford, at Marsham Street in Westminster, London, was completed.* Rothko Chapel in Houston, Texas,...
. The tower faces East 9th Street, and although plans called for a second mirror-image tower along Euclid Avenue, the second building was never constructed. It initially served as the headquarters for Ameritrust Bank before they merged with Society Bank, which is now part of Key Bank
Key Bank
KeyBank is a regional bank headquartered in Key Tower within Cleveland, Ohio's Public Square. , it is the 19th largest bank in the United States based on total deposits...
.
In 2005, the tower, an adjacent historic George B. Post rotunda
Rotunda (architecture)
A rotunda is any building with a circular ground plan, sometimes covered by a dome. It can also refer to a round room within a building . The Pantheon in Rome is a famous rotunda. A Band Rotunda is a circular bandstand, usually with a dome...
, and several other surrounding structures were purchased for use as the consolidated administrative offices of Cuyahoga County
Cuyahoga County, Ohio
Cuyahoga County is a county located in the state of Ohio, United States. It is the most populous county in Ohio; as of the 2010 census, the population was 1,280,122. Its county seat is Cleveland. Cuyahoga County is part of Greater Cleveland, a metropolitan area, and Northeast Ohio, a...
. On March 29, 2007, the Cuyahoga County Commissioners voted to demolish the tower and to replace it with a new building to be designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox
Kohn Pedersen Fox
Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates , an architectural firm responsible for several world-renowned buildings, provides architectural, interior and urban design as well as programming and master planning services for clients in both the public and private sectors...
. The Cleveland Planning Commission approved demolition of the landmark Ameritrust Tower, to the chagrin of preservationists, who argued that the county would destroy a valued piece of architecture. In 2007, the Cuyahoga County Commissioners, claiming a desire to devote more of their energies for Medical Mart and Convention Center, decided to attempt to sell the complex to private developers. The County declared that it would not sell the property for less $35 million, which represented the purchase price plus expenditures made during removal of asbestos and the demolition of the tower's lobby which was begun but not completed. The removal of the asbestos and the now-defunct Cuyahoga County Administration center are now involved in Federal investigation on contractor paybacks. In a June 2008, Cleveland Magazine article, the county's own consultants told commissioners that it would be cheaper and more prudent to renovate the tower for its own use, but two commissioners, James "Jimmy" DiMora and Timothy Hagan, voted against renovation, while commissioner Peter Lawson-Jones supported renovation.
The only bid on the complex was submitted by the K&D group of Willoughby, Ohio
Willoughby, Ohio
As of the census of 2000, there were 22,621 people, 10,265 households, and 5,892 families residing in the city. The population density was 2,225.3 people per square mile . There were 10,700 housing units at an average density of 1,052.6 per square mile...
, for $35,005,000. K&D proposes converting the tower into a hotel and residential building, and plans to build new office space on the site as well. K&D Group owns Reserve Square
Reserve Square
Reserve Square is a two-building skyscraper complex in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, United States. Both buildings have 25 floors and are 266 feet high. Embassy Suites Tower houses a hotel and was built in 1969, and East Tower is a residential skyscraper completed in 1973....
on East 12th and Chester, Reserve Square was known as The Park Apartments in 1973. Today this development has an Embassy Suites Hotel, an apartment complex, and is home of Cleveland's CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
affiliate WOIO
WOIO
WOIO, virtual channel 19 , is the CBS affiliate in Cleveland, Ohio. It is licensed to the nearby suburb of Shaker Heights. WOIO is owned by Raycom Media and its sister station to MyNetworkTV affiliate WUAB . The two stations share a studio facility in Cleveland and WOIO's transmitter is located in...
. Source: Cleveland Plain Dealer 11/06/07. On 4/17/2008, Cuyahoga County Board of Commissioners approved the K&D group Bid and the deal should close within six months. K&D Group has enlisted the Cleveland Architectural firm of Westlake, Reed, Leskosky to design an office building. A Hotel operator will be announced in May or June according to the K&D Group. The Marcel Breuer tower will become a hotel/condo complex, there will be preservation and sandblasting of the famous portal windows.
On 7/16/2008, The K&D Group and the Cleveland firm of WRL-or Westlake, Reed, and Leskosky did a presentation of the site. The plan includes a 13-story glass and black granite building on East Ninth Street and Huron Avenue. WRL will become a tenant in the new building. The Marcel Breuer
Marcel Breuer
Marcel Lajos Breuer , was a Hungarian-born modernist, architect and furniture designer of Jewish descent. One of the masters of Modernism, Breuer displayed interest in modular construction and simple forms.- Life and work :Known to his friends and associates as Lajkó, Breuer studied and taught at...
Tower will house an Indigo Moon Hotel with condos in the building. The 1908 rotunda will house either a ballroom or a gallery. The plan must also be examined by the City of Cleveland's fine arts commission. Also an alleyway named Barn Court will have to also be vacated for new complex to be built and renovated. This project will be a $133-million dollar project. This project could begin as early as December 2008. Cleveland Plain Dealer 7/17/2008
Ameritrust Tower 1997
In 1990, Richard Jacobs with the success of the then Society Center now Key TowerKey Tower
Key Tower is a skyscraper on Public Square in downtown Cleveland, Ohio designed by architect César Pelli. It is the tallest building in both the city of Cleveland and the state of Ohio, the 18th tallest building in the United States, and the 70th tallest building in the world...
was under construction, Jacobs proposed another tower on Cleveland's Public Square. The Tower would have been owned by the Ameritrust Corporation. They budgeted about $500,000,000 dollars for the project. The site would have been on Public Square.
The Architectural firm of Kohn Pedersen Fox
Kohn Pedersen Fox
Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates , an architectural firm responsible for several world-renowned buildings, provides architectural, interior and urban design as well as programming and master planning services for clients in both the public and private sectors...
or KPF of New York City would have designed the new Ameritrust Tower. Coincidentally, KPF would have had designed the Cuyahoga County Administration Building which would have built at the old Ameritrust Tower (1971) site.
In 1992, Ameritrust merged with Society Bank (now KeyBank), obviating the need for the Ameritrust Tower.
Had the Ameritrust Tower had been built, The Tower would have had a curved glass curtain wall, a Hyatt Hotel, and high class shopping with names like Giorgio Armani and Versace as anchor tenants.
Tower facts if built
- Designer: Kohn Pedersen Fox (NYC)
- Owner: Richard Jacobs Group (Cleveland)
- General Contractor: Turner ConstructionTurner ConstructionTurner Construction Company is one of the largest construction management companies in the United States with a construction volume of $8 billion in 2010. It is a subsidiary of HOCHTIEF Germany.-The early years:...
of Cleveland - Height: 1,175 feet plus space for Cleveland Television
- Floors: 70-75 stories