Great American Insurance Building at Queen City Square

Great American Insurance Building at Queen City Square
Information
Location	300 East Third Street Cincinnati, Ohio
Status	Construction imminent
Groundbreaking	Spring 2008
Estimated completion	2011
Opening	2011
Use	Office
Height
Roof	201m (660 ft)
Technical details
Floor count	40
Companies
Architect	Gyo Obata (Hellmuth, Obata and Kassabaum)
Contractor	Turner Construction Company
Developer	Western & Southern Financial Group

The Great American Insurance Building at Queen City Square is a proposed skyscraper in Cincinnati, Ohio. The tower is expected to begin construction in 2008, with completion set for 2011 at a cost of $300 million.^[1] Half the building will be occupied by Great American Insurance Company headquartered in Cincinnati.^[2]

Contents 1 Background 2 Design 3 Footnotes 4 References 5 External links

Background

Western & Southern Financial Group had floated the idea of constructing a tower for the last twenty years, following the last construction boom in Downtown Cincinnati. In 2002 the project was revived.^[3] Current plans call for a tower with over 800,000 square feet of office space.^[4] When the tower is completed in 2011, it will be 660 feet high, 86 feet higher than the Carew Tower, currently the tallest building in Cincinnati.^[5] The building will be reviewed by the Urban Design Review Board to determine whether its parameters conform to the outline in the Cincinnati 2000 plan for downtown which will ultimately decide whether or not to approve the project.^[6]

Design

The building's architect, Gyo Obata, designed the building to include a top inspired by Diana, Princess of Wales's tiara. Gyo was flipping through books when he came upon a picture of Diana wearing a crown. "That's perfect. Here we have the crown of the building, and the nickname for the city is Queen City," said Joe Robertson of Hellmuth, Obata and Kassabaum remarking to Gyo when he first saw the picture.^[5] The building will be constructed of glass and aluminum.^[5] It has met with approval from Sue Ann Painter, author of "Architecture in Cincinnati" (Ohio University Press, 2006), who believes the skyscraper's headdress recalls the iconic Chrysler Building. She continues to say that the building is somewhat conservative, but pays homage to the other skyscrapers in Cincinnati.^[5] Jay Chatterjee, a former dean of the University of Cincinnati College of Design, Art, Architecture & Planning says that the design is similar to buildings constructed in the United States during the 1980s, that it does not break any new ground at all