Town Pavilion
Encyclopedia
Town Pavilion is a 38-story 180.1 m (590.9 ft) 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 at 1111 Main Street on the northeast corner of 12th and Main Streets in Downtown
Downtown Kansas City
Downtown Kansas City is the central business district of Kansas City, Missouri and the Kansas City Metropolitan Area. It is located between the Missouri River in the north, to 31st Street in the south; and from the Kansas–Missouri state line east to Troost Avenue as defined by officials of the...

 Kansas City
Kansas City, Missouri
Kansas City, Missouri is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and is the anchor city of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area, the second largest metropolitan area in Missouri. It encompasses in parts of Jackson, Clay, Cass, and Platte counties...

, Missouri
Missouri
Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...

, around the corner from Oppenstein Brothers Memorial Park
Oppenstein Brothers Memorial Park
Oppenstein Brothers Memorial Park is an urban park located in the heart of Kansas City, Missouri's, Central business district. Located at the northeast corner of 12th and Walnut Streets, it used to be home to the Rain Thicket Fountain that was established in 1980. The park is often visited by...

. The tower occupies the former site of several retail buildings--including Kline's Department Store and Kresge's Dime Store. The 11-story former Harzfeld's Department Store and the former Boley Building were preserved, and have been integrated into the design of Town Pavilion.

Completed in 1986, it is the second-tallest habitable building in Kansas City behind One Kansas City Place
One Kansas City Place
One Kansas City Place is the tallest building located in downtown Kansas City, Missouri, bounded by 12th Street to the north, Baltimore Avenue to the west, and Main Street to the east...

, and third tallest in Missouri behind One Metropolitan Square
One Metropolitan Square
One Metropolitan Square, also known as Met Square, or Met 1, is a skyscraper completed in 1989 in downtown St. Louis, Missouri. At , it is the tallest building in the city, and second tallest building in Missouri behind One Kansas City Place in Kansas City...

 in St. Louis
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...

. Two of the building's main tenants are Transamerica
Transamerica Corporation
Transamerica Corporation is a holding company for various life insurance companies and investment firms doing business primarily in the United States. It was acquired by the Dutch financial services conglomerate AEGON in 1999.-History:...

 and Bank Midwest.

Background

Town Pavilion was constructed originally as "AT&T Town Pavilion" and opened in 1986. It was built as the Southwest Regional Headquarters for AT&T. AT&T occupied the 34-story tower from the opening through present day. However in about 1997, due to AT&T's drastic downsizing, they were no longer the major tenant in the building. Transamerica took the majority of the office space and placed its name and logo at the top of the tower. The project was undertaken as a joint venture between AT&T Resource Management (AT&T's Real Estate Group) and Copaken, White & Blitt
Copaken, White & Blitt
Copaken & Brooks is a family-owned commercial real estate developer headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri that owns and developed some of the city's and Missouri's largest buildings.The firm was founded by Herman Copaken in 1922....

. The architect was HNTB
HNTB
HNTB Corporation is an architecture and engineering consulting firm headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri that has designed many bridges, roadways, airports and professional sports stadiums across the United States and around the world.The firm started in 1914 as Harrington, Howard & Ash...

 of Kansas City. It was built as a mixed-use office–retail complex. The main component was the three-story retail base, which included a food court on the third floor, and the 34-story office tower. This component took up the entire block formed by Walnut St., Main St., 11th St. (Petticoat Lane) and 12th St. AT&T's official entrance was 1100 Walnut St and the official retail entrance was 1111 Main St. Also included in this component were two historic renovations, The Harzfeld's building on the corner of 11th and Main, and The Boley Building
Boley Building
The Boley Building in Kansas City, Missouri is a building from 1909 designed by Canadian-born American architect Louis Curtiss. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971....

 on the corner of 12th and Walnut. The Boley building was touted to be the first example of French Iron Curtain Wall construction in the United States. This main component was attached to two anchor stores, The Jones Store and Macy's, via sky bridges. There was also a sky bridge crossing Walnut St. to the 1201 Walnut office tower, and a multi-level parking garage which also incorporated two historic renovations, retaining the facade of the Jenkins Music Building, and the Bonfils Building at the corner of 12th and Grand.

History

Town Pavilion was completed in 1986, temporarily becoming the state's tallest building. It contained a shopping mall which was anchored by Dillard's
Dillard's
Dillard's, Inc. is a department store chain in the United States, with 330 stores in 29 states. Headquartered in Little Rock, Arkansas, Dillard's locations are concentrated in Texas and Florida; with a major presence in other states including Arizona, Iowa, Colorado, Wyoming, Kansas, Missouri,...

 and the Jones Store
The Jones Store
The Jones Store Company was an American chain of department stores located in the Kansas City area formerly operated by Mercantile Stores Company and the St. Louis, Missouri-based May Co.-History:...

 co. Two years later, it was surpassed in height by One Kansas City Place
One Kansas City Place
One Kansas City Place is the tallest building located in downtown Kansas City, Missouri, bounded by 12th Street to the north, Baltimore Avenue to the west, and Main Street to the east...

, which is located at the same intersection (12th and Main Streets). Since its completion, it has been home to a significant amount of Downtown Kansas City's office and retail space, with over 1200000 square feet (111,483.6 m²) of office space.

It was developed by Frank Morgan and his uncle Sherman W. Dreiseszun (operating as MD Management) who would build One Kansas City Place.

Appearance

The exterior of the building was constructed with granite
Granite
Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...

, glass
Glass
Glass is an amorphous solid material. Glasses are typically brittle and optically transparent.The most familiar type of glass, used for centuries in windows and drinking vessels, is soda-lime glass, composed of about 75% silica plus Na2O, CaO, and several minor additives...

 with steel
Steel
Steel is an alloy that consists mostly of iron and has a carbon content between 0.2% and 2.1% by weight, depending on the grade. Carbon is the most common alloying material for iron, but various other alloying elements are used, such as manganese, chromium, vanadium, and tungsten...

 trim. 90% of the building is enclosed in glazed glass, the majority of which is dark blue. The structural system of the roof is in a truss
Truss
In architecture and structural engineering, a truss is a structure comprising one or more triangular units constructed with straight members whose ends are connected at joints referred to as nodes. External forces and reactions to those forces are considered to act only at the nodes and result in...

 form.

When viewed from the sky, this skyscraper appears to be a glass "cathedral
Cathedral
A cathedral is a Christian church that contains the seat of a bishop...

" in the Latin Cross Design. It is unknown if the architect purposely made it appear this way.

See also

  • Architecture in Kansas City
    Architecture in Kansas City
    The architecture of Kansas City, Missouri and the metro area includes major works by many of the world's most distinguished architects and firms, including McKim, Mead and White; Jarvis Hunt; Wight and Wight; Graham, Anderson, Probst and White; Hoit, Price & Barnes; Frank Lloyd Wright; the Office...

  • One Kansas City Place
    One Kansas City Place
    One Kansas City Place is the tallest building located in downtown Kansas City, Missouri, bounded by 12th Street to the north, Baltimore Avenue to the west, and Main Street to the east...

    - Nearby skyscraper, tallest habitable structure in Missouri

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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