Thanks to Jason Pierce, project architect in St. Louis, for this post.
HOK’s Aimee Rowbottom, project manager, and Tom Kaczkowski, project lighting designer, share interesting facts about the 700 Market building. It is the youngest building on the National Historic Registry, sat vacant for approximately 10 years and contained more than 150,000 bricks, including 20,000 special radial and angle bricks.
A group from HOK’s St. Louis office toured a current project at 700 Market in downtown St. Louis. HOK is part of the team updating the building originally designed by Philip Johnson and John Burgee for the General American Life Insurance Company.
The building opened in 1975 but has been vacant since 2004, when General American moved its office out of downtown. The Laclede Group plans to move employees into the 127,000-sq.-ft. building in 2015.
A new roof terrace will be accessible by tenants and will include outdoor gardens and gathering areas for events, lunch breaks and meetings.
“The building may be a Post Modern icon, but it also presents a very challenging space due to the design,” writes Alex Ihnen on nextSTL.com. “In essence, Johnson produced a plain glass box, then sliced it on the diagonal and lifted one half three stories and connected the two with a massive circular atrium. In this way, the building’s stature is much greater than its size.”
The six-story rotunda is one of the building’s unique features. The lower half opens to the mall and Citygarden, while the upper half commands a prominent view of Ballpark Village and the Gateway Arch.
The 700 Market Building is the youngest structure in the country on the National Historic Registry, according to The Koman Group, the developer.
View of the six-story rotunda from above, highlighting three of the 10 bridges that extend to the elevator core in the center of the rotunda.
The building is located along the Gateway Mall in downtown St. Louis and provides views of the Old Courthouse, the Gateway Arch, Citygarden sculpture park and Busch Stadium. It was also used in the recent George Clooney movie, “Up In the Air.”
Overlooking Citygarden, the three upper floors of the newly renovated 700 Market Street project become a vantage point for occupants to see the City Mall, a view available to very few downtown.
