The project team worked under the gun as the primary tenant threatened to walk if the building wasn’t delivered on time.

The team met its deadline despite the fact that a financing delay pushed the start back four months and the concrete was poured during one of the coldest winters on record. Nevertheless, intense negotiations with the concrete subcontractor resulted in much of the 20,000 cu yd of concrete being poured in one overnight period. Building on a former turning basin for the city’s canal system, the project team avoided a time-consuming archeological dig into the basin by constructing a cast-in-place parking garage on the first level rather than underground.

The 18-story office tower located between the state capitol, the James River and two major highways, rejuvenated the city’s financial district. But the building’s architecture is strikingly different from the neighborhood’s modern towers. The cubist-like structure is divided into three large rectangular blocks that are all wrapped in facades made from different materials. The eastern block features a 135,000-sq-ft clear glass curtain wall with thin vertical aluminum fins, while the central block is clad in a taut glass curtain wall. The western block is wrapped in a sculptural-like facade with light-gray-hued aluminum panels that are perforated, cut and bent.
 

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