Fountain Place

{{Short description|Famous skyscraper in downtown Dallas Texas}}

{{Use mdy dates|date=February 2025}}

{{Use American English|date=January 2025}}

{{Infobox building

| name = Fountain Place

| image = Fountain place.jpg

| image_size = 200px

| caption =

| alternate_names = First Interstate Tower
Allied Bank Tower

| location = 1445 Ross Ave
Dallas, Texas

| coordinates = {{coord|32.7844|-96.8023|region:US-TX|display=inline,title}}

| start_date = 1984

| completion_date = 1986

| building_type = Commercial offices

| roof = {{convert|219.5|m|abbr=on}}

| floor_count = 63

| elevator_count = 30

| cost = 300 million USD$

| floor_area = {{convert|111480|m2|abbr=on}}

| architect = Pei Cobb Freed & Partners
Dan Kiley
Harry Weese Associates
WZMH Architects

| structural_engineer= CBM Engineers, Inc.
Cosentini Associates

| main_contractor = The Beck Group

| developer = Criswell Companies

| owner = {{nowrap|Goddard Investment Group}}

| management =

| references = {{Cite web |url=https://www.emporis.com/buildings/118408 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160422115132/https://www.emporis.com/buildings/118408 |url-status=usurped |archive-date=April 22, 2016 |title=Emporis building ID 118408 |work=Emporis}}{{Glass Steel and Stone|495}}{{SkyscraperPage|114}}{{Structurae|20002383}}

|website = {{URL|http://fountainplace.com/}}

}}

Fountain Place is a 60-story late-modernist skyscraper in downtown Dallas, Texas. Standing at a structural height of {{convert|720|ft|abbr=on}}, it is the fifth-tallest building in Dallas, and the 15th-tallest in Texas. A new 45-story sibling tower, AMLI Fountain Place, has been built to its northwest on an adjacent lot.

Design

File:View of Fountain Place from Reunion Tower August 2015 21.jpg in August 2015]]

Original plans for the project called for twin towers, with the second tower rotated 90 degrees from the original, to be built across the garden on an adjacent lot, but with the collapse of the Texas oil, banking and real estate industry and the savings and loan scandal of the 1980s, the project was never completed.

The building was designed by the Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, Henry N. Cobb, Harry Weese Associates, and WZMH Architects, and was completed in 1986.

The building was named for the array of 172 dancing fountains in the plaza at its base with a fully automated water show as the centerpiece. The fountains were an extreme undertaking and the first concept of their kind on such a large scale{{Citation needed|date=April 2018}}. WET Design company was brought in to facilitate the project; it was the company's first major project since the founders left Disney to team up. WET collaborated with the firm of I. M. Pei as well as landscape architects Dan Kiley and Peter Ker Walker to create the waterscape of Fountain Place (at Allied Bank Tower) in Dallas, Texas. The project showed the first use of WET's patented open-jointed paving in a fountain where shots of water appear from the openings in the plaza's surface. After completion of Fountain Place, WET went on to design other notable fountains such as the Bellagio fountains in Las Vegas and The Dubai Fountain.

The building 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 sibling tower, AMLI Fountain Place, consists of 367 residential units above nine stories of parking.{{Cite web|URL=https://www.pagethink.com/v/project-detail/Fountain-Place-Residences/du/|title=Fountain Place Residences|author=|website=Page Southerland Page|access-date=2019-01-13}} Its architect, Page Southerland Page, Inc., intended its exterior design to echo that of the original office tower, calling to mind the planned but never realized twin tower. Upon its completion, it was the tallest skyscraper built in Dallas since the Chase Building.{{Cite web|url=https://www.dallasnews.com/business/real-estate/2017/06/01/striking-new-downtown-dallas-skyscraper-will-tallest-decades|title=Striking new skyscraper in downtown Dallas will be tallest in decades|last=Brown|first=Steve|date=2017-06-01|website=Dallas News|publisher="A.H. Belo Corporation," owner of "The Dallas Morning News"|access-date=2019-01-13}}

History

At the time of its opening, it was the second tallest building in the city, behind Bank of America Plaza. However, upon completion of the Comerica Bank Tower and the Chase Tower, it fell to fourth-tallest. The post-completion addition of an antenna spire to the Renaissance Tower relegated Fountain Place to its current spot at fifth on the list.

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.{{cite news |author1=Jason Trahan |author2=Todd J. Gillman |author3=Scott Goldstein | title=Dallas Bomb Plot Suspect Told Landlord He Was Moving Out | work=The Dallas Morning News | url=http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/092409dnmetbombarrest.1b177db8b.html | date=26 September 2009 |access-date=2010-04-08}}

Tenants

Fountain Place was the headquarters of Tenet Healthcare until 2020. 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 then 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.

Fountain Place contains many financial institutions and offices including Wells Fargo. Originally cited as First Interstate Tower or Allied Bank Tower, it was after the 1988 merger of Wells Fargo that the building became known as Fountain Place, becoming the only major skyscraper in Dallas not to lend its name to the occupying bank.

The top two levels of Fountain Place are occupied by Dallas Architecture Firm, Rouch Architects.

Fountain Place also serves as Region 6 headquarters for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Hunt Oil operated out of Fountain Place until they built new headquarters across the street in 2007.

In 2020, Omnichannel Insurtech company Integrity Marketing Group renovated and moved into 12 floors becoming the building’s largest tenant.

AMLI Fountain Place

File:AMLIFountainPlace.jpg

AMLI Fountain Place is a 562 ft. (171 m) residential skyscraper that neighbors Fountain Place. It was designed by architecture firm Page.https://www.amli.com/apartments/dallas/downtown-dallas-apartments/amli-fountain-place/ In 2019 it was under construction, and had been projected to be completed in 2020.{{Cite web|title=Archer Western Tops Out AMLI Fountain Place in Dallas|url=https://www.constructionequipmentguide.com/archer-western-tops-out-amli-fountain-place-in-dallas/45518|website=www.constructionequipmentguide.com|language=en|access-date=2020-05-25}} The project was first proposed in 2016, to remove the parking space on Fountain Place's west side. The project will also be the first project since the proposed Ross Perot Tower to occupy the parking lot. The original design called for twin buildings of Fountain Place, however because of the oil crisis/decline, the twin was never built. The twin building was projected to be built parallel to the parking lot.

AMLI Fountain Place has brought in 367 apartments that rise 46 stories.

See also

References

{{Reflist}}

Further reading

  • {{cite book | last=Dupré | first=Judith | pages=92–93 | title=Skyscrapers | edition=second | location=New York | publisher=Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, Inc | year=2008 | isbn=1-57912-787-8}}