The Robert B. Atwood Building is an office building located at 550 West 7th Avenue in

Downtown ''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in North America by English speakers to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business distric ...

Anchorage Anchorage () is the largest city in the U.S. state of Alaska by population. With a population of 291,247 in 2020, it contains nearly 40% of the state's population. The Anchorage metropolitan area, which includes Anchorage and the neighboring Ma ...

Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S., ...

. The building houses government offices for the

State of Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S. ...

. Standing at 20 stories and 81 m (265 ft), it is the second-tallest building in Alaska. The building was formerly known as the ''

Bank of America The Bank of America Corporation (often abbreviated BofA or BoA) is an American multinational investment bank and financial services holding company headquartered at the Bank of America Corporate Center in Charlotte, North Carolina. The bank w ...

Center''. Together with the slightly taller

Conoco-Phillips Building The Conoco-Phillips Building is a 22- story, office building begun in 1981 and completed in 1983 as the ARCO Building, at 700 G Street in downtown Anchorage, Alaska and is the tallest building in both Anchorage and the state of Alaska. It was d ...

, this high-rise helps define the Anchorage skyline.

Facilities

A landscaped

plaza A town square (or square, plaza, public square, city square, urban square, or ''piazza'') is an open public space, commonly found in the heart of a traditional town but not necessarily a true geometric square, used for community gatherings. ...

is featured on the building's east side. The single-story basement is used as a parking level. There are nine

elevator An elevator or lift is a wire rope, cable-assisted, hydraulic cylinder-assisted, or roller-track assisted machine that vertically transports people or freight between floors, levels, or deck (building), decks of a building, watercraft, ...

s in the building. Amenities include

teleconferencing A teleconference is the live exchange of information among several people remote from one another but linked by a telecommunications system. Terms such as audio conferencing, telephone conferencing and phone conferencing are also sometimes used t ...

-enabled conference rooms,

vending A vending machine is an automated machine that provides items such as snacks, beverages, cigarettes, and lottery tickets to consumers after cash, a credit card, or other forms of payment are inserted into the machine or otherwise made. The fir ...

and break rooms, and a central mail room.

Parking garage

The State of Alaska completed a new

parking garage A multistorey car park (British and Singapore English) or parking garage (American English), also called a multistory, parking building, parking structure, parkade (mainly Canadian), parking ramp, parking deck or indoor parking, is a build ...

in 2008 across the street from the Robert B. Atwood Building. The garage is named the

Linny Pacillo Parking Garage The Linny Pacillo Parking Garage is a 10-story parking garage in downtown Anchorage, Alaska, United States. The upper nine stories are for parking, with the first story serving as retail space. The structure contains a total of , including the re ...

after local parking activist Carolyn 'Linny' Pacillo who, with her sister, Susan, became famous during the 1990s for wearing tutus and plugging parking meters downtown in protest to strict parking enforcement. The sisters were dubbed the Parking Fairies. Linny Pacillo died in 2006.

Involvement in seismic research

In 2003, the

United States Geological Survey The United States Geological Survey (USGS), formerly simply known as the Geological Survey, is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, ...

(USGS) installed a network of

accelerometers An accelerometer is a tool that measures proper acceleration. Proper acceleration is the acceleration (the rate of change of velocity) of a body in its own instantaneous rest frame; this is different from coordinate acceleration, which is accele ...

throughout the building to monitor the effects of

earthquakes An earthquake (also known as a quake, tremor or temblor) is the shaking of the surface of the Earth resulting from a sudden release of energy in the Earth's lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, from ...

on tall buildings. The Atwood Building was selected due to the unique properties of the "Bootlegger Cove Formation" soil it stands on, and the historical seismicity of the region ''(see

Good Friday earthquake The 1964 Alaskan earthquake, also known as the Great Alaskan earthquake and Good Friday earthquake, occurred at 5:36 PM AKST on Good Friday, March 27.

.)'' The mission of the research is to better understand the effects of seismicity on similar buildings to better prepare them for future large earthquakes. The USGS has since published a video created by S. Farid Ghahari, Mehmet Çelebi, and Ertugrul Taciroglu, which shows movement of the Atwood building during a M7 event in January, 2016. Shaking in the Atwood Building in Anchorage, Alaska
" USGS, 30 March, 2016. Retrieved 21 Nov. 2016.

History

The architect for the Atwood building was Harold Wirum & Associates. The building officially opened for business on March 17, 1983, although only 15% of the office space was occupied. The building was scheduled to be opened up April 1st, but a man by the name Fred McCallister convinced them to have it opened on

St. Patrick's Day Saint Patrick's Day, or the Feast of Saint Patrick ( ga, Lá Fhéile Pádraig, lit=the Day of the Festival of Patrick), is a cultural and religious celebration held on 17 March, the traditional death date of Saint Patrick (), the foremost patr ...

, the top floor was used the opening night as a St. Patrick's Day celebration. The building was developed by NB Hunt Trust Estate who filed for bankruptcy from the

Silver Thursday Silver Thursday was an event that occurred in the United States silver commodity markets on Thursday, March 27, 1980, following the attempt by brothers Nelson Bunker Hunt, William Herbert Hunt and Lamar Hunt (also known as the Hunt Brothers) to ...

debacle in the late 80s. After

Chapter 11 Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code (Title 11 of the United States Code) permits reorganization under the bankruptcy laws of the United States. Such reorganization, known as Chapter 11 bankruptcy, is available to every business, wheth ...

was filed, ownership of the building was transferred to Equitable Life Assurance in September 1988 that later sold their interest in the building to the

in 1997 for $27 million.

Namesake

The building was originally named after the original owner

Nelson Bunker Hunt Nelson Bunker Hunt (February 22, 1926 – October 21, 2014) was an American oil company executive. He was a billionaire whose fortune collapsed after he and his brothers William Herbert and Lamar tried to corner the world market in silver ...

as the Hunt Building. It was renamed the Enserch Center in September 1985 and later renamed again as the Bank of America Center. Most recently it was named after Robert Bruce Atwood, an Alaska statehood activist and ''

Anchorage Times The ''Anchorage Times'' was a daily newspaper published in Anchorage, Alaska, that became known for the pro-business political stance of longtime publisher and editor, Robert Atwood. Competition from the McClatchy-owned ''Anchorage Daily News'' ...

'' editor and publisher.

References