Foshay Tower

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The Foshay Tower, looking east. In the background, from left to right, are 225 South Sixth ("the Stanley Cup Tower"), the Ameriprise Financial Center, and the TCF Tower.

The Foshay Tower is a skyscraper located in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Modeled after the Washington Monument, the building was completed in 1929 in the months before the stock market crash in October of that year. It has 32 floors and stands 447 feet (136m) high, plus an antenna mast that brings the total height of the structure to 607 feet (185m). The building, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1977, is an example of Art Deco architecture. Its address is 821 Marquette Avenue, although it is set well back from the street and is actually closer to 9th Street than Marquette.

The building has been credited as "the first skyscraper west of the Mississippi," although some previous structures in the city were considered by some to be skyscrapers. It still marked a significant landmark in the push skyward, as the tower was the first in the city to surpass the height of Minneapolis City Hall, completed in 1906. Being "west of the Mississippi" is also somewhat vague—it may have been the first building of its height in the upper Midwest, although buildings on the West Coast and at points south probably had comparable height. The tower remained the tallest building in Minneapolis until the IDS Center reached the same height during construction circa 1972. It remains one of the tallest concrete skyscrapers to this day, second only in height to the Empire State Building in New York City.

Foshay Tower is the namesake of Wilbur Foshay, a businessman who bought and sold utilties companies in order to build his fortune. The building has the name "FOSHAY" in capital letters on all four sides just below the top. The top few floors of the building were designed as Foshay's business office and personal residence. When the building was completed, he held a large ceremony featuring music by John Philip Sousa. Foshay even persuaded him to create a special march named "Foshay Tower-Washington Memorial March" that was only played once during Foshay's lifetime, for the opening of the Tower. Six weeks after the building's opening, Foshay's corporate empire had crumbled to dust as the Great Depression began. Ignominiously, Foshay's check to Sousa bounced, and in retaliation, Sousa prohibited the playing of the march so long as Foshay's debt to him remained outstanding. In 1999, a group of Minnesota investors repaid Foshay's debt to Sousa's estate, and the march was permitted to be played again.

Because the building was designed to echo the Washington Monument, the sides of the building slope slightly inward. Each floor of the Foshay Tower is slightly smaller than the one below it. It is also unusual in that the tower is set back from the street, with a two-story structure surrounding it on the Marquette Avenue and 9th Street sides. The other two sides of the building, facing 8th Street and 2nd Avenue, are now surrounded by the TCF Tower, which rises to seventeen stories on the 2nd Avenue side and entirely obscures the views out the windows of the first seven stories of the Foshay Tower on the 2nd Avenue and 8th Street sides. The exterior is faced with Indiana limestone, while the interior features African Mahogany, Italian marble, terrazzo, and ornamental bronze and wrought iron. It cost US$3.75 million to build, and techniques used in its construction were patented by Foshay and architect Gottlieb R. Magney. Internally, the building uses steel and reinforced concrete.

In January 1981, the building was wrapped in a huge yellow ribbon during the final days of the Iran hostage crisis. Once the hostages returned to the United States, the ribbon was moved to the Minnesota State Capitol in Saint Paul.

The antenna on the roof has been used by a few different broadcasters. Former users include television stations WTCN (a predecessor to modern-day KARE) and KMSP. Radio station KFAI has been broadcasting from the tower since 1984.

On Septemer 4, 2006, it was reported that developers Ralph Burnet and Minneapolis-based Ryan Companies may spend as much as $90 million to convert the 32-story office tower into a 230-room W Hotel. The expected completion date of the conversion is sometime in 2008-2009.

The only Norwegian consulate in the Midwest is located in the tower.