Two Wells Fargo Center

Two Wells Fargo Center is a 433 ft high-rise in Charlotte, North Carolina. It was completed in 1971.[1] Currently it is the 14th tallest building in Charlotte. The building consists of 32 floors, an atrium, plaza, six-story parking garage, and is connected to neighboring buildings via skybridges, as part of the Overstreet Mall.[3]

History

The building was designed by LaBella Associates, formerly known as Pease Engineering and Architecture, with David Julian Moore was the architect on-site functioning as construction administrator. When it was completed, the 32-story building was called Jefferson First Union Tower.[4] It became the tallest building in North Carolina, overtaking the Winston Tower in Winston-Salem.[5] The building changed names several times as the occupying bank merged with other banks

Related buildings

The shorter building in the Two First Union complex was built in 1954 to serve as the headquarters of Union National Bank, later First Union National Bank. The original building was 9 stories; 3 stories were added in the 1960s.[17] The building was known for its 21000 sqft Charlotte Hornets mural which lasted four years.[18][19] Wachovia planned to move its 900 employees out of the shorter building by the end of 2003. It was believed to be too outdated to occupy[20] but the decision was made to renovate it instead. The renovation costs were about equal to the cost to rebuild it. Chris Scorsone the lead designer of the renovation with Little Diversified Architectural Consulting said, "We looked at this as just another evolution of the building. The important part of the building was the location, not its style. This is an important part of the Wachovia campus."[21] The last renovation had taken place in the 1970s.[22] The new project involved moving some employees temporarily to the BellSouth building and other locations, the bank returned to the building in Spring 2006.[23] In May 2006, it was repainted from beige to gray to complement the renovated color scheme at the neighboring Wachovia Main. On October 12, 2006, the bank's new flagship branch opened on the ground floor. It replaced branches in One and Three Wachovia Center and at 8500 sqft, was one of the bank's largest, using the style of branches in New York City and Dallas.[24][25]

The Charlotte Masonic Temple at 329 S Tryon St. was already on the corner of South Tryon and Third Street when Union National Bank built the shorter building. It was built in 1915 for $122,750. The building was designed by architect C. C. Hook to be Egyptian-Revival architecture. In 1937 a fire gutted the building and it seemed like a total loss. However, it 1938 it was restored and rededicated. In 1985, First Union bought the Masonic Temple. Tt was demolished was demolished in 1987. The former property is now occupied by Wells Fargo Plaza. The two massive columns of the building façade are now on display on Dave Lyle Blvd. in Rock Hill, SC.[26]

In 1998 First Union began considering building a 72-story building on the plaza to house additional employees in Uptown. The plan was for the tower to occupy where the 12-story tower currently stands, the atrium, some of the parking deck, and space in the plaza on South Tryon. Even with the construction of the Three First Union Center the company still didn't think they would have enough space. The bank planned to construct a building as grand as Bank of America Corporate Center. Before cancelling the project the bank was considering New York architecture firm Kohn Pedersen Fox as one of the two finalists for designing the building. KPF famously designed Shanghai World Financial Center, which opened in 2008. The other finalist was Atlanta architecture firm Thompson Ventulett Stainback & Associates, which designed 301 South College. The project was tentatively called Four First Union.[27] However, the plans for the new tower were putting on hold indefinitely in September 1999 due to the company's poor performance on the stock market.[28] In 2002 the final renderings of the building were leaked. The renderings showed 100 floors with 80 usable. If the building were built it would have been 40 floors taller than the city's current tallest building, Bank of America Corporate Center.[29]

location	301 South Tryon Street Charlotte, North Carolina, United States
coordinates	35.2247°N, -80.8447°W
status	Complete
construction start date	1968
completion date	1971
opening date	1971
building type	Office
architectural style	Modern
antenna spire	433 ft‡R1R‡
floor count	32
floor area	758,508 sqft‡R2R‡
parking	On site parking garage
public transit	3rd Street/CC

Two Wells Fargo Center

History

See also

External links

References