The U.S. Bancorp Tower (also known as the Big Pink) is a 42-story,

skyscraper A skyscraper is a tall continuously habitable building having multiple floors. Modern sources currently define skyscrapers as being at least or in height, though there is no universally accepted definition. Skyscrapers are very tall high-ris ...

Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous co ...

. It is the second tallest building in the city after

Wells Fargo Center Wells Fargo Center may refer to: *Wells Fargo Center (Los Angeles), California *Wells Fargo Center (Sacramento), California * Wells Fargo Center (San Francisco), California * Wells Fargo Center for the Arts, Santa Rosa, California * Wells Fargo Cen ...

, and with its nearly office space, it is the largest in

Oregon Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...

in terms of volume.

History

Skidmore, Owings and Merrill Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) is an American architectural, urban planning and engineering firm. It was founded in 1936 by Louis Skidmore and Nathaniel A. Owings, Nathaniel Owings in Chicago, Illinois. In 1939, they were joined by engineer Jo ...

(SOM) with

Pietro Belluschi Pietro Belluschi (August 18, 1899 – February 14, 1994) was an Italian-American architect. A leading figure in modern architecture Modern architecture, or modernist architecture, was an architectural movement or architectural style based up ...

as the consultant, the tower cost $60 million to construct. Ground was broken on May 29, 1981,Brennan, Tom (May 30, 1981). "U.S. Bancorp begins 'staggering' tower". ''The Oregonian'', p. C7. and the building was largely completed in June 1983.Cour, Brian (July 24, 1986). "PacifiCorp units lease 2 floors in bank tower". ''The Oregonian'', p. F13. It was dedicated on December 1, 1983. The tower adjoins U.S. Bank Plaza at 555 SW Oak Street, a 7-story, building constructed in 1974."New office buildings take place on downtown skyline, boost economy". (March 24, 1975). ''The Oregonian'', p. G2. A tower expected to rise about 37 stories was already part of the bank's long-term site plans at that earlier date, but that phase of the plans ended up being delayed until the 1980s. Originally, the building served as the national

headquarters Headquarters (commonly referred to as HQ) denotes the location where most, if not all, of the important functions of an organization are coordinated. In the United States, the corporate headquarters represents the entity at the center or the to ...

U.S. Bancorp U.S. Bancorp (stylized as us bancorp) is an American bank holding company based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and incorporated in Delaware. It is the parent company of U.S. Bank National Association, and is the fifth largest banking institution i ...

, and was the regional headquarters of that organization until a 1997 merger moved the corporate offices to

Minneapolis Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origins ...

Minnesota Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minnesota is home to western prairies, now given over to ...

. As of 2004, U.S. Bancorp had leased until 2015. During the 1980s and 1990s, the top floors held the headquarters of

Louisiana-Pacific Louisiana-Pacific Corporation, commonly known as "LP", is an American building materials manufacturer. It was founded in 1973 and is currently based in Nashville, Tennessee. LP pioneered the U.S. production of oriented strand board (OSB) panels. ...

. Since a $4 million renovation in 2002, the 30th floor of the tower has been occupied by the Portland City Grill, Portland's top-grossing restaurant. It has been cited as the restaurant with the best view in Portland. In 2000, the U.S. Bancorp Tower was sold for a price of $165 million to a partnership of three firms:

Unico Properties Unico Properties LLC (formerly University Properties Inc) is an American private equity real estate investment and development company based in Seattle, Washington, focused on the north-west and west of the US. It was founded in 1953. As of Se ...

JPMorgan JPMorgan Chase & Co. is an American multinational investment bank and financial services holding company headquartered in New York City and incorporated in Delaware. As of 2022, JPMorgan Chase is the largest bank in the United States, the w ...

and Wafra Investment Advisory Group. In 2004, a majority stake in the tower was acquired by California-based Broadreach Capital Partners LLC, which bought-out JPMorgan and Wafra, but Unico continued to own 25 percent. At that time, 92 percent of the building was leased. In August 2006, a majority stake in the building was purchased by "institutional investors advised by JPMorgan Asset Management" for a price of $286 million. In 2008

LaSalle Investment Management LaSalle Investment Management ("LaSalle") is a real estate investment management firm. It is an independent subsidiary of Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL), a real estate financial and professional services company. LaSalle manages capital for institut ...

purchased a majority stake in the building from Unico Properties; the building had an estimated value of $285 million at the time. LaSalle sold their stake in 2015, to TPF Equity REIT that is majority-owned by

UBS UBS Group AG is a multinational Investment banking, investment bank and financial services company founded and based in Switzerland. Co-headquartered in the cities of Zürich and Basel, it maintains a presence in all major financial centres ...

. Unico Properties retains a minority share in the building. The sale price was $372.5 million, a record for any office building in the Portland area.

Design

Perhaps the most unusual features of the U.S. Bancorp Tower are its shape and color. Pietro Belluschi was most concerned about the play of light and shadows on its surface; meanwhile, the SOM team had to work with a uniquely shaped lot due to the

street grid In urban planning, the grid plan, grid street plan, or gridiron plan is a type of city plan in which streets run at right angles to each other, forming a grid. Two inherent characteristics of the grid plan, frequent intersections and orthogona ...

. Because of the street grid, the tower features no

right angle In geometry and trigonometry, a right angle is an angle of exactly 90 Degree (angle), degrees or radians corresponding to a quarter turn (geometry), turn. If a Line (mathematics)#Ray, ray is placed so that its endpoint is on a line and the ad ...

s in its

parallelogram In Euclidean geometry, a parallelogram is a simple (non- self-intersecting) quadrilateral with two pairs of parallel sides. The opposite or facing sides of a parallelogram are of equal length and the opposite angles of a parallelogram are of equa ...

footprint. This, in turn, makes it look either extremely slender or wide depending upon one's viewing angle. Belluschi carefully selected the

glass Glass is a non-crystalline, often transparent, amorphous solid that has widespread practical, technological, and decorative use in, for example, window panes, tableware, and optics. Glass is most often formed by rapid cooling (quenching) of ...

and

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies undergro ...

for the exterior facing. The pink granite covering the building was quarried in Spain. The

Pittsburgh Plate Glass PPG Industries, Inc. is an American Fortune 500 company and global supplier of paints, coatings, and specialty materials. With headquarters in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, PPG operates in more than 70 countries around the globe. By revenue it is ...

used for the windows is also pink, an effect caused by its being "glazed in a semitransparent coating of copper and silver that looks pink from the outside". The windows can absorb or reflect light depending upon how much light is upon them, while the surrounding granite may appear darker or lighter than the window panes, depending upon the time of day. The unusual color earned the building the nickname "Big Pink". From 2013 to 2015, the entire building underwent interior design renovation. In October 2019, the building achieved the

Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) is a green building certification program used worldwide. Developed by the non-profit U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), it includes a set of rating systems for the design, construction ...

Platinum certification for environmental

sustainability Specific definitions of sustainability are difficult to agree on and have varied in the literature and over time. The concept of sustainability can be used to guide decisions at the global, national, and individual levels (e.g. sustainable livi ...

from the

U.S. Green Building Council The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), co-founded by Mike Italiano, David Gottfried and Rick Fedrizzi in 1993, is a private 501(c)3, membership-based non-profit organization that promotes sustainability in building design, construction, and op ...

. File:Big pink low angle.jpg, Northeast facing view of Big Pink from Burnside File:USBancorpTowerI5k.jpg, Daytime view on a cloudy day File:Bancorpmthood.jpg, The U.S. Bancorp Tower with

Mount Hood Mount Hood is a potentially active stratovolcano in the Cascade Volcanic Arc. It was formed by a subduction zone on the Pacific coast and rests in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located about east-southeast of Portlan ...

in the background File:Portland Skyline looking South.jpg, U.S. Bancorp Tower, looking south File:US Bancorp Tower.jpg, An aerial view of the U.S. Bancorp tower, August 2016

References

External links

{{Commons category
KATU webcam from the top of the building
Pietro Belluschi buildings Skidmore, Owings & Merrill buildings Office buildings completed in 1983 Skyscraper office buildings in Portland, Oregon U.S. Bank buildings Bank company headquarters in the United States Bank buildings in Oregon 1983 establishments in Oregon Southwest Portland, Oregon Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design platinum certified buildings

History

Design

See also

References

External links