Highmark Place

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View of Highmark Place from Mt. Washington

Information
Status Complete
Constructed 1988
Use Office
Height
Roof 616 ft (188 m)
Floor count 31

Highmark Place (officially known as Fifth Avenue Place) is a skyscraper in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. United States. The tower is named for the Highmark Corporation.

The building was completed in 1988 and it has 31 floors. Located at the corner of Liberty Avenue and Fifth Avenue, it rises 616 feet (188 meters) above Downtown Pittsburgh. The structure is made up of a unique granite frame for roughly the first 450 feet, then collapses inward in a pyramidal shape for another 124 foot tall roof structure. The roof utilizes four prisms clad in granite and encloses a penthouse area that stores the mechanics for the building as well as the cooling towers. Before Highmark's branding of the top of the tower, there were video screens at the base of the decorative summit of the building.

Protruding from the top of the skyscraper is a 178-foot tall mast manufactured by Meyer Industry of Minnesota. Despite its rounded appearance, the 13-story steel structure is actually 12-sided and measures four feet in diameter. Due to high winds, the mast allows for up to three feet of sway. The height at the top of the mast represents the intended height for the building when it was in development. However, the city decided that that height would not fit in well with the skyline, so the height of the main structure was restricted to what it is today.

[edit] References

  • Toker, Franklin (2007). Buildings of Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh: Chicago: Society of Architectural Historians; Santa Fe: Center for American Places ; Charlottesville: In association with the University of Virginia Press. ISBN 0-8139-2650-5. 

[edit] External links

Preceded by
Oxford Centre
Pittsburgh Skyscrapers by Height
616 feet (188 m)
31 floors
Succeeded by
PPG Place
Preceded by
Dominion Tower
Pittsburgh Skyscrapers by Year of Completion
1988
Succeeded by
Mellon Client Services Center