Peachtree Center

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Peachtree Center, including the Westin Peachtree Plaza Hotel (far left) and the Atlanta Marriott Marquis (far right) Peachtree Center.jpg
Peachtree Center, including the Westin Peachtree Plaza Hotel (far left) and the Atlanta Marriott Marquis (far right)

Peachtree Center is a district located in Downtown Atlanta, Georgia. Most of the structures that make up the district were designed by Atlanta architect John C. Portman Jr. A defining feature of the Peachtree Center is a network of enclosed pedestrian sky bridges suspended above the street-level, which have garnered criticism for discouraging pedestrian street life. [1] The district is served by the Peachtree Center MARTA station, providing access to rapid transit.

Contents

History

Skywalks are a defining feature of Peachtree Center The Skywalk.jpg
Skywalks are a defining feature of Peachtree Center

Intended to be the new downtown for Atlanta, Peachtree Center emerged as a distinct district in the early 1970s as a networked realm of convention hotels, shopping galleries, and office buildings a quarter-mile north of Five Points. Peachtree Center is notable for its uniform embodiment of the modern architectural style popular at the time. Yet the defining feature of Peachtree Center is its insular orientation, which allows patrons and workers to avoid interacting with the street level by traversing the area through sky bridges. By the mid-1980s, Peachtree Center had become the core of a dedicated hotel-convention district that lay at the heart of the Downtown economy, even as the remainder of Downtown Atlanta deteriorated markedly. [2]

While at the time Peachtree Center was considered the salvation of a decaying downtown Atlanta, contemporary city planning is highly critical of such insular environments that "turn their back" on the city streets. [3] Thus, as intown Atlanta began its post-1990 resurgence, Peachtree Center was increasingly criticized as an area that epitomized contemporary Atlanta's generic urbanity and sense of placelessness. [4] Other critics claim that Peachtree Center is disorienting, killed downtown street-life, and disregarded the existing urban context. [5]

The center was recognized for its architecture with listing on the National Register of Historic Places in 2018. [6]

Architecture

Sacred Heart Catholic Church, located on Peachtree Center Avenue AtlantaMarriott-SacredHeart.JPG
Sacred Heart Catholic Church, located on Peachtree Center Avenue
The beige buildings of Peachtree Center Peachtree-center.jpg
The beige buildings of Peachtree Center
NameHeightFloorsYearNotes
Peachtree Center Tower
230 Peachtree Street
116 m (381 ft)31 floors1965 [7] [8]
Peachtree Center North (Gas Light Tower)
235 Peachtree Street
101 m (331 ft)27 floors1968 [9] [10]
Peachtree Center South
225 Peachtree Street
101 m (331 ft)27 floors1970 [11] [12]
Hyatt Regency Atlanta 104 m (341 ft)24 floors1967 [13] [14]
Harris Tower
233 Peachtree Center NE
116 m (381 ft)31 floors1974 [15] [16]
Peachtree Center International Tower (Cain Tower)
229 Peachtree Street NE
115 m (377 ft)30 floors1976 [17] [18]
Marquis I
245 Peachtree Center NE
115 m (377 ft)30 floors1985 [19] [20]
Marquis II
285 Peachtree Center NE
115 m (377 ft)30 floors1989 [21] [22]
Peachtree Athletic Club
227 Courtland Street NE
9 floors1985 [23]
Westin Peachtree Plaza Hotel
210 Peachtree Street NW
220.5 m (723 ft)73 floors1976
Atlanta Marriott Marquis
265 Peachtree Center Avenue NE
169 m (554 ft)52 floors1985
AmericasMart
Various Addresses
Various Heights1961, 1979, 1992, 2008
Truist Plaza
303 Peachtree Street NE
265 m (869 ft)60 floors1992
American Cancer Society Center
250 Williams Street NW
10 floors1989

Governmental Organisations

The U.S. Census Bureau has its Atlanta Regional Census Center in Suite 1000 in the Marquis Two Tower. [24] Several additional U.S. Government agencies have their southeast regional offices located in the Harris Tower, including the Department of Transportation, Department of Labor, Small Business Administration, and Internal Revenue Service.

The Consulate-General of Argentina is located in Suite 2101 in the Marquis One Tower. [25] [26] The Consulate-General of Germany is located in Suite 901 of the Marquis Two Tower. [27] The Consulate-General of South Korea is located in Suite 500 in the International Tower. [28]

See also

Related Research Articles

John Calvin Portman Jr. was an American neofuturistic architect and real estate developer widely known for popularizing hotels and office buildings with multi-storied interior atria. Portman also had a particularly large impact on the cityscape of his hometown of Atlanta, with the Peachtree Center complex serving as downtown's business and tourism anchor from the 1970s onward. The Peachtree Center area includes Portman-designed Hyatt, Westin, and Marriott hotels. Portman's plans typically deal with primitives in the forms of symmetrical squares and circles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bank of America Plaza (Atlanta)</span> Skyscraper in downtown Atlanta, GA, USA

Bank of America Plaza is a supertall skyscraper between Midtown Atlanta and Downtown Atlanta. At 311.8 m (1,023 ft), as of February 2024 the tower is the 23rd tallest building in the United States, the tallest building in the Southeastern region of the United States, and the tallest building in any U.S. state capital, overtaking the 250 m (820 ft), 50-story One Atlantic Center in height, which held the record as Georgia's tallest building. It has 55 stories of office space and was completed in 1992, when it was called NationsBank Plaza. Originally intended to be the headquarters for Citizens & Southern National Bank, it became NationsBank's property following its formation in the 1991 hostile takeover of C&S/Sovran by NCNB.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Truist Plaza</span> Skyscraper in downtown Atlanta, Georgia, United States

Truist Plaza is a 265 m (869 ft) 60 story skyscraper in downtown Atlanta. It was designed by John C. Portman Jr. of John Portman & Associates and built from 1989 to 1992. In the mid-1990s, Portman sold half of his interest in the building to SunTrust Banks, which then moved its headquarters to the building and prompted a name change from One Peachtree Center to SunTrust Plaza. In 2021 the building changed its name to Truist Plaza, following a merger between SunTrust Banks and BB&T. The building is also known as 303 Peachtree. The building has a roof height of 871 feet and stands a total of 902 feet tall, including its antenna. When completed, Truist Plaza stood as the world's 28th tallest building and 21st tallest building in the United States. Now it is not in the top 400 in the world, and it is currently the 55th tallest building in the United States and 2nd tallest building in Atlanta.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">One Atlantic Center</span> Skyscraper in Atlanta, Georgia

One Atlantic Center, also known as IBM Tower, is a skyscraper located in Midtown Atlanta, Georgia. It is the third tallest building in Atlanta.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">191 Peachtree Tower</span> Skyscraper in Atlanta

One Ninety One Peachtree Tower is a 235 m (771 ft) 50-story skyscraper in Atlanta, Georgia. Designed by Johnson/Burgee Architects and Kendall/Heaton Associates Inc, the building was completed in 1990 and is the fourth tallest in the city, winning the BOMA Building of the Year Awards the next year, repeating in 1998 and 2003.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Westin Peachtree Plaza Hotel</span> Skyscraper hotel in downtown Atlanta, Georgia, United States

The Westin Peachtree Plaza, Atlanta, is a skyscraper hotel on Peachtree Street in downtown Atlanta, Georgia, adjacent to the Peachtree Center complex and the former Davison's/Macy's flagship store with 1,073 rooms. At 723.0 ft (220.37 m) and 73 stories, a total building area of 1,196,240 sq ft (111,134 m2) and a 187 ft (57 m) diameter, the tower is the fourth-tallest hotel in the Western Hemisphere, and the 30th tallest all-hotel building in the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Georgia-Pacific Tower</span> Skyscraper in Atlanta, Georgia

Georgia-Pacific Center is a 212.45 m (697.0 ft), 1,567,011 sq.ft skyscraper in downtown Atlanta, Georgia, United States. It contains 52 stories of office space and was finished in 1982. Before the six-year era of tall skyscrapers to be built in Atlanta, it was Atlanta's second-tallest building from 1982 to 1987. It has a stair-like design that staggers down to the ground, and is clad in pink granite quarried from Marble Falls, Texas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tower Square (Atlanta)</span> Building in Atlanta, GA

Tower Square is a 206.4 m (677 ft), 47-story skyscraper located in Midtown Atlanta, Georgia. Completed in 1982, it serves as the regional headquarters of BellSouth Telecommunications, which does business as AT&T Southeast, and was acquired as part of AT&T's acquisition of BellSouth. BellSouth Corporate headquarters was located in the Campanile building, also in Midtown. By 2020, AT&T had vacated its offices.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Flatiron Building (Atlanta)</span> Commercial offices in Atlanta, Georgia

The English-American Building, commonly referenced as the Flatiron Building, is a building completed in 1897 located at 84 Peachtree Street NW in downtown Atlanta, Georgia, on the wedge-shaped block between Peachtree Street NE, Poplar Street NW, and Broad Street NW. It was completed five years before New York's Flatiron Building, and shares a similar prominent flatiron shape as its counterpart. It was designed by Bradford Gilbert, a Chicago school contemporary of Daniel Burnham, the designer of the New York building. The building has 11 stories, and is the city's second and oldest standing skyscraper. The Flatiron building is protected by the city as a historic building in the Fairlie-Poplar district of downtown, and is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Architecture of Atlanta</span>

The architecture of Atlanta is marked by a confluence of classical, modernist, post-modernist, and contemporary architectural styles. Due to the Battle of Atlanta and the subsequent fire in 1864, the city's architecture retains almost no traces of its Antebellum past. Instead, Atlanta's status as a largely post-modern American city is reflected in its architecture, as the city has often been the earliest, if not the first, to showcase new architectural concepts. However, Atlanta's embrace of modernism has translated into an ambivalence toward architectural preservation, resulting in the destruction of architectural masterpieces, including the Commercial-style Equitable Building, the Beaux-Arts style Terminal Station, and the Classical Carnegie Library. The city's cultural icon, the Neo-Moorish Fox Theatre, would have met the same fate had it not been for a grassroots effort to save it in the mid-1970s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1180 Peachtree</span> Mixed Use in Atlanta, Georgia

1180 Peachtree, commonly known as the Symphony Tower, is a 41-story skyscraper located at 1180 Peachtree Street in the Midtown district of Atlanta, Georgia, United States. Rising to a height of approximately 657 feet (200 m), the building includes office and retail space in its 624,996 sq ft (58,064 m2) of floor area as well as a 1,200 space parking deck. Construction was completed in 2006.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Downtown Atlanta</span> Central business district of Atlanta, Georgia, United States

Downtown Atlanta is the central business district of Atlanta, Georgia, United States. The largest of the city's three commercial districts, it is the location of many corporate and regional headquarters; city, county, state, and federal government facilities; Georgia State University; sporting venues; and most of Atlanta's tourist attractions. It measures approximately four square miles, and had 26.850 residents as of 2017. Similar to other central business districts in the United States, it has recently undergone a transformation that includes the construction of new condos and lofts, renovation of historic buildings, and arrival of new residents and businesses.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peachtree Summit</span> Skyscraper in Atlanta, Georgia

Peachtree Summit is a 125 m (410 ft), 31-story skyscraper in downtown Atlanta, Georgia. Completed in 1975, Peachtree Summit is shaped like a triangle due to the unusual shape of its building lot, which is hemmed in by the Downtown Connector, West Peachtree Street, and Ivan Allen Jr. Boulevard. The building has a direct connection to the Civic Center MARTA station and was built with a three-story lobby to account for the late 1970s elevation of West Peachtree Street for MARTA construction. This building was planned as the first of three similar buildings for the area, of which only this one was constructed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Embarcadero Center</span> Commercial complex in San Francisco

Embarcadero Center is a commercial complex of four office towers, two hotels, a shopping center with more than 125 stores, bars, and restaurants, and a fitness center on three levels located in San Francisco, California. There is an outdoor ice skating rink during winter months. Embarcadero Center sits on a 9.8-acre (4.0 ha) site largely bounded by Clay Street, Sacramento Street, Battery Street, and the Embarcadero, in the financial district of San Francisco.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">3344 Peachtree</span>

3344 Peachtree is a 50-story high-rise building of 635 feet (194 m) height located in Atlanta's uptown business district of Buckhead on Peachtree Road, the northern extension of Peachtree Street. The building is a mixed-use tower that incorporates upscale dining, office space, and 82 condominia at 3344 Peachtree Road. Completed in the spring of 2008, it is the ninth tallest building in Atlanta and the tallest mixed-use building in Atlanta. It has also surpassed the Park Avenue Condominiums as the tallest building in Atlanta not to be located downtown or midtown. The building is owned by Cousins Properties of Atlanta, Georgia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hyatt Regency Atlanta</span> Building in Georgia, United States

The Hyatt Regency Atlanta is a business hotel located on Peachtree Street in downtown Atlanta, Georgia. Opened in 1967 as the Regency Hyatt House, John C. Portman Jr.'s revolutionary 22-story atrium design for the hotel has influenced hotel design enormously in the years since. The hotel instantly became one of the most recognized buildings in Atlanta.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Colony Square</span> Development and sub-district in Atlanta, Georgia, US

Colony Square is a mixed-use development and sub-district in Midtown Atlanta, Georgia, located on Peachtree Street in between 14th and 15th Streets. The oldest high-rise development in Midtown, the sub-district was built between 1969 and 1975, with Henri Jova of Jova/Daniels/Busby serving as principal architect. It was the first mixed-use development in the Southeast.

References

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  3. Robert M. Craig (August 14, 2009). "John Portman". New Georgia Encyclopedia. Georgia Institute of Technology. Retrieved June 27, 2013.
  4. The Postsouthern Sense Of Place In Contemporary Fiction, Page 6 By Martyn Bone
  5. Mahbub Rashid (1997). Revisiting John Portman's Peachtree Center Complex in Atlanta (PDF). Space Syntax First International Symposium. Vol. 1. London. p. 17.1. Retrieved June 27, 2013.
  6. "WEEKLY LIST OF ACTIONS TAKEN ON PROPERTIES: 3/14/2018 THROUGH 3/26/2018". National Park Service. Retrieved March 28, 2018.
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  8. "230 Peachtree Building". SkyscraperPage .
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  10. "Peachtree Center North". SkyscraperPage .
  11. "Peachtree Center South". Emporis . Archived from the original on March 7, 2016.
  12. "Peachtree Center South". SkyscraperPage .
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  14. "Hyatt Regency Atlanta". SkyscraperPage .
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  16. "Harris Tower". SkyscraperPage .
  17. "Peachtree Center International Tower". Emporis . Archived from the original on July 2, 2019.
  18. "Peachtree Center International Tower". SkyscraperPage .
  19. "Marquis I". Emporis . Archived from the original on March 7, 2016.
  20. "Marquis I". SkyscraperPage .
  21. "Marquis II". Emporis . Archived from the original on March 7, 2016.
  22. "Marquis II". SkyscraperPage .
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  24. "The Atlanta Region." U.S. Census Bureau. Retrieved on January 17, 2010.
  25. "Contáctenos." Consulate-General of Argentina in Atlanta. Retrieved on July 28, 2009.
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  27. "Address, Contact and Office Hours Archived 2008-11-18 at the Wayback Machine ." Consulate-General of Germany in Atlanta. Retrieved on July 28, 2009.
  28. "About the Mission". Consulate General of the Republic of Korea in Atlanta. 2013. Retrieved May 31, 2013.

33°45′37″N84°23′16″W / 33.7604°N 84.3877°W / 33.7604; -84.3877