One Charles Center

One Charles Center
Location 100 N. Charles St., Baltimore, Maryland
Coordinates 39°17′27″N 76°36′56″W / 39.29083°N 76.61556°W / 39.29083; -76.61556Coordinates: 39°17′27″N 76°36′56″W / 39.29083°N 76.61556°W / 39.29083; -76.61556
Area less than one acre
Built 1962 (1962)
Architectural style International Style
NRHP Reference # 00000745[1]
Added to NRHP July 13, 2000

One Charles Center is a historic office building located at Baltimore, Maryland, United States. It is a 23-story aluminum and glass International Style skyscraper designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and constructed in 1962. It was the first modernistic office tower in Baltimore and the keynote of the city’s nationally recognized downtown urban renewal movement and Charles Center. The base consists of a concrete-faced podium topped by a paved plaza, with the "T"-shaped office tower atop.[2] The tower is detailed in Mies's signature bronze metal trim and gray glass.[3]

The tower was the subject of a design competition that included a submission by Marcel Breuer. The tower was completed in 13 months at a cost of $10,350,000.[3] One Charles Center was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2000.[1] It is located next to the Fidelity Building, which was completed in 1897.

In 1983, the Charles Center stop of the Baltimore Metro Subway opened one block south of the Charles Center complex at the intersection of Baltimore Street and Charles Street. This stop serves as a transportation hub that connects the Metro (extending west to the northwest suburbs of the city and east to Johns Hopkins Hospital) to many local bus routes and the Charm City Circulator.

A former owner of the building and longtime anchor tenant, CSX Corporation, sold and vacated the property in the mid-1990s, leaving the tenancy rate worrisomely low. This prompted an auction for new ownership in which Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, its mortgage holder, bought One Charles Center in 1993 for $11.5 million dollars.[4] Three years later in 1996, the building was purchased for $6 million by Peter Angelos, a lawyer native to Baltimore and the majority owner of the Baltimore Orioles major league baseball team. After extensive renovations, many new tenants moved into the building, including the law offices of Peter Angelos as well as the firm Wright Constable & Skeen.[5]

Other former tenants of One Charles Center include T. Rowe Price, an investment counsel firm and major employer in Baltimore (now located nearby at 100 East Pratt Street) and the Center Club of Baltimore (now located in the Transamerica Tower).[6]


References

  1. 1 2 National Park Service (2010-07-09). "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service.
  2. ↑ Betty Bird (May 2000). "National Register of Historic Places Registration: One Charles Center" (PDF). Maryland Historical Trust. Retrieved 2016-03-01.
  3. 1 2 Dorsey, John; Dilts, James D. (1981). A Guide to Baltimore Architecture (Second ed.). Centreville, Maryland: Tidewater Publishes. p. 95. ISBN 0-87033-272-4.
  4. ↑ http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1993-08-18/business/1993230054_1_commercial-real-charles-center-real-estate
  5. ↑ http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1998-12-11/business/1998345007_1_charles-center-angelos-artemis
  6. ↑ http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1996-11-13/business/1996318052_1_charles-center-angelos-building


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