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°WCoordinates: 32°47′04″N 96°48′08″W / 32.7844°N 96.8023°W
Construction started 1984
Completed 1986
Owner Crescent Fountain Place, L.P.
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 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 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 landscape and namesake fountains were designed by Dan Kiley.

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. The building gets its name from the array of 172 dancing fountains in the plaza at its base.

History

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 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.[5]

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.[6]

Tenants

Fountain Place is the headquarters of Tenet Healthcare and contains many financial institutions and offices that serve as Region 6 headquarters for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The architecture firm Callison moved into Fountain Place in 2008, leasing the entire 26th floor.[7]

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.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Fountain Place at Emporis
  2. ↑ Fountain Place at Glass Steel and Stone
  3. ↑ Fountain Place at SkyscraperPage
  4. ↑ Fountain Place at Structurae
  5. ↑ Steve Brown (8 August 2008). "Tenet Healthcare moving to downtown Dallas' Fountain Place". The Dallas Morning News. Retrieved 2010-01-28.
  6. ↑ 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.
  7. ↑ "Office Locations in EPA Region 6". U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 2009. Retrieved 2010-04-06.

Further reading

External links