One Meridian Plaza - Building

Building

One Meridian Plaza was a 38-story high-rise office building designed by Vincent Kling & Associates. Construction on the 492 feet (150 m) tower began in 1968, was completed in 1972 and approved for occupancy in 1973. Built at the corner of 15th Street and South Penn Square in Center City, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the US$40 million high-rise was built adjacent to the Girard Trust Building, now the Ritz-Carlton Philadelphia, and the front faced Philadelphia City Hall across the street. The rectangular One Meridian Plaza was 243 feet (74 m) long and 92 feet (28 m) wide and contained 756,000 square feet (70,000 m2). Of the 38 floors, 36 were occupiable and 2 were mechanical floors. The structure also had 3 underground levels. The building's structure was composed of steel and concrete and the facade was a granite curtain wall. There were two helipads on the roof. One Meridian Plaza's eastern stairwell connected the building to the adjacent Girard Trust Building. At one point there were plans to build a structure on the south side of One Meridian Plaza that would share one of the elevator banks in the high-rise, but nothing came of the plans mainly due to neither site having the same owner. On the northwest corner of the property is a bronze sculpture called "Triune." Designed by Robert Engman the abstract sculpture was not damaged in the 1991 fire and is still there.

When One Meridian Plaza was built Philadelphia was enforcing a building code from 1949 that made no distinction between high-rises and other buildings. In 1984 Philadelphia adopted new codes that required automatic sprinkler systems in all new buildings. At the time of construction, sprinklers were only built on the service levels below ground. In 1988 plans were put in place to have automatic sprinklers placed throughout the building by November 1993. By 1991 four floors were completely protected by sprinklers and in part on three other floors. The sprinklers had been installed during floor renovations at the request of tenants and the building's owners had plans to install more as other floors were renovated.

The high-rise was originally known as the Fidelity Mutual Life Building, named for Fidelity Mutual Life Insurance Co. who developed the building in a joint venture with Girard Bank. The high-rise was the tallest building built in Philadelphia since the early 1930s. Girard Bank sold its share of the property, which was also known as Three Girard Plaza, to Fidelity Mutual Life in 1982. Fidelity Mutual Life, which had moved its offices out of the building to Radnor Township, Pennsylvania earlier that year, subsequently sold the building to E/R Partners in 1983. A joint venture of the Rubin Organization and Equitable Life Assurance Company of America, E/R Partners bought the property for US$143 million. In 1989 a Dutch pension fund, Algemeen Burgerlijk Pensioenfonds, paid US$120 million to enter E/R Partners with a sixty-five percent stake in the building. In 1984 Three Girard Plaza became the Three Mellon Bank Center after Girard Bank was bought by Mellon Bank, and in 1990 was renamed again to One Meridian Plaza after Meridian Bank replaced Mellon Bank as the lead tenant. Another major tenant was Comcast, who made 81,000 square feet (7,500 m2) of One Meridian Plaza its corporate headquarters in 1989.