Tower Square (formerly known as BellSouth Center, Southern Bell Center, and AT&T Midtown Center I) is a , 47-story

skyscraper A skyscraper is a tall continuously habitable building having multiple floors. Most modern sources define skyscrapers as being at least or in height, though there is no universally accepted definition, other than being very tall high-rise bui ...

located in Midtown

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Georgia (U.S. state), most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. It is the county seat, seat of Fulton County, Georg ...

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the South Caucasus * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the southeastern United States Georgia may also refer to: People and fictional characters * Georgia (name), a list of pe ...

. Completed in 1982, it served as the regional headquarters of

BellSouth Telecommunications BellSouth Telecommunications, LLC was an operating company of AT&T that serves the southeastern United States. It consists of the former operations of Southern Bell and South Central Bell. BellSouth Telecommunications was a subsidiary of ...

, which does business as AT&T Southeast, and was acquired as part of AT&T's acquisition of

BellSouth BellSouth, LLC (stylized as ''BELLSOUTH'' and formerly known as BellSouth Corporation) was an American telecommunications holding company based in Atlanta, Georgia. BellSouth was one of the seven original Regional Bell Operating Companies after ...

. BellSouth Corporate headquarters was located in the

Campanile A bell tower is a tower that contains one or more bells, or that is designed to hold bells even if it has none. Such a tower commonly serves as part of a Christian church, and will contain church bells, but there are also many secular bell to ...

building, also in Midtown. By 2020, AT&T had vacated its offices.

Background

The company, then called

Southern Bell Southern Bell Telephone and Telegraph Company was a Bell Operating Company serving the Southeastern United States of Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, and South Carolina. It also previously covered the states of Alabama, Kentucky, Louisiana, M ...

, 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 History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some theorists categ ...

Fox Theatre which would have been an especially great loss to the city after the downtown

Loew's Grand Theatre Loew's Grand Theater, originally DeGive's Grand Opera House, was a movie theater at the corner of Peachtree Street, Peachtree and Forsyth Streets in downtown Atlanta, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia, United States. It was most famous as the site o ...

was destroyed by fire in 1978. Tremendous

opposition Opposition may refer to: Arts and media * ''Opposition'' (Altars EP), 2011 EP by Christian metalcore band Altars * The Opposition (band), a London post-punk band * ''The Opposition with Jordan Klepper'', a late-night television series on Comedy ...

protest A protest (also called a demonstration, remonstration, or remonstrance) is a public act of objection, disapproval or dissent against political advantage. Protests can be thought of as acts of cooperation in which numerous people cooperate ...

fundraising Fundraising or fund-raising is the process of seeking and gathering voluntary financial contributions by engaging individuals, businesses, charitable foundations, or governmental agencies. Although fundraising typically refers to efforts to gathe ...

, and

petition A petition is a request to do something, most commonly addressed to a government official or public entity. Petitions to a deity are a form of prayer called supplication. In the colloquial sense, a petition is a document addressed to an officia ...

drives within the

community A community is a social unit (a group of people) with a shared socially-significant characteristic, such as place, set of norms, culture, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given g ...

prevented the Fox's

demolition Demolition (also known as razing and wrecking) is the science and engineering in safely and efficiently tearing down buildings and other artificial structures. Demolition contrasts with deconstruction (building), deconstruction, which inv ...

. Even

Liberace Władziu Valentino Liberace (May 16, 1919 – February 4, 1987) was an American pianist, singer and actor. He was born in Wisconsin to parents of Italian and Polish Americans, Polish origin and enjoyed a career spanning four decades of concerts, ...

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 Public transport (also known as public transit, mass transit, or simply transit) are forms of transport available to the general public. It typically uses a fixed schedule, route and charges a fixed fare. There is no rigid definition of whi ...

stations. The

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs, and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

s who designed the tower were

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill SOM, an initialism of its original name Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP, is a Chicago-based architectural, urban planning, and engineering firm. It was founded in 1936 by Louis Skidmore and Nathaniel Owings. In 1939, they were joined by engineer ...

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 ''RoboCop 3'' is a 1993 American science fiction superhero action film directed by Fred Dekker and written by Dekker and Frank Miller. It is the sequel to the 1990 film '' RoboCop 2'' and the third and final entry in the original ''RoboCop'' f ...

, 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.

References

External links

*
Tower Square
at ''LoopNet'' {{DEFAULTSORT:ATandT Midtown Center Midtown Center 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

Background

See also

References

External links