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Tower Square
Tower Square, when it was AT&T Midtown Center (2016)
Location within Atlanta MidtownShow map of Atlanta MidtownTower Square (Atlanta) (Atlanta)Show map of AtlantaTower Square (Atlanta) (Georgia)Show map of GeorgiaTower Square (Atlanta) (the United States)Show map of the United States
Former names	BellSouth Building Southern Bell Telephone Building AT&T Midtown Center I
General information
Location	675 W Peachtree St NW Atlanta, GA 30308
Coordinates	33°46′22″N 84°23′13″W / 33.77268°N 84.38692°W / 33.77268; -84.38692
Completed	1980
Height
Roof	206.4 m (677 ft)
Technical details
Floor count	47
Design and construction
Architect(s)	Skidmore, Owings & Merrill FABRAP
Engineer	Weidlinger Associates
References

Tower Square (formerly known as BellSouth Center, Southern Bell Center, and AT&T Midtown Center I) is a 206.4 m (677 ft), 47-story skyscraper located in Midtown Atlanta, Georgia. Completed in 1982, it served 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.

Background

The company, then called Southern Bell, originally planned to build the parking deck for the tower one block further east at the corner of Ponce de Leon Avenue and Peachtree Street. This would have required the razing of the historic Fox Theatre which would have been an especially great loss to the city after the downtown Loew's Grand Theatre was destroyed by fire in 1978. Tremendous opposition, protests, fundraising, and petition drives within the community prevented the Fox's demolition. Even Liberace spoke out on behalf of the "Fabulous Fox". In the end, a complicated deal was struck to build the parking deck on an alternate site north of the main tower on West Peachtree Street.

The building has a direct entrance to the North Avenue MARTA Station, which is located at the southern end of the complex and was built concurrently with the building. In 2002, BellSouth completed construction of two additional mid-rise buildings adjacent to the tower to form its BellSouth Midtown Center campus as part of its effort to consolidate office space around mass transit stations.

The architects who designed the tower were Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and Rosser International, Inc. The general contractor for its construction was Beers Skanska, Inc. The building also served as a filming location for the 1993 science fiction action film RoboCop 3, in which it was used as the setting for the headquarters of the evil megacorporation O.C.P, the main antagonist organization in the RoboCop trilogy.

In 2019, a major renovation and re-branding to "Tower Square" was announced. It was subsequently renamed in October 2020.

See also

• Architecture of Atlanta
• List of tallest buildings in Atlanta

References

1. "Tower Square". CTBUH Skyscraper Center.
2. "Emporis building ID 121201". Emporis. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
3. "Tower Square". SkyscraperPage.
4. Tower Square at Structurae
5. Spivak, Caleb J. (August 23, 2020). "'Tower Square' Signage Now Adorns Former AT&T Midtown Center As Marquee Tenant Moves Out". What Now Atlanta. Retrieved January 26, 2023.
6. Keenan, Sean (May 17, 2019). "Renderings: Midtown's AT&T campus could be reborn as pedestrian-friendly 'Tower Square'". Curbed Atlanta. Retrieved May 17, 2019.
7. Peters, Andy (October 16, 2020). "Midtown tower's iconic AT&T logo gone in renovation". The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Retrieved January 26, 2023.
8. Kelley, Collin (October 19, 2020). "Former AT&T building completes phase one of transformation to Tower Square". Rough Draft Atlanta. Retrieved January 26, 2023.

External links

• Media related to AT&T Midtown Center at Wikimedia Commons

• Tower Square at LoopNet

• AT&T buildings
• Midtown Atlanta
• Skyscraper office buildings in Atlanta
• Telecommunications company headquarters in the United States
• Skidmore, Owings & Merrill buildings
• Cecil Alexander buildings
• 1982 establishments in Georgia (U.S. state)
• Office buildings completed in 1982