In 1998, T.Stacy & Associates consolidated tracts of land at the building site, at the time a vacant lot, and sold it to Cousins Properties in 2001. Their original plan called for a building with 27 floors, but the final plan called for a tall building with 33 floors. As the building began construction on November 27, 2001, it became the tallest building in the United States of America to be constructed after the September 11 attacks. Construction was finished about 2 years later in 2003, and the tower was officially dedicated in 2004. It became the tallest building in Austin, Texas, and the fourth tallest building outside of Dallas and Houston, Texas. In August 2003 cost of the building was estimated at $137 million. After Austin's skyscraper construction boom, which began in 2007, Frost Bank Tower was soon surpassed in height by the 360 Condominiums at in 2008. As of March 2011, it is the 54th tallest building in Texas. In 2006, Cousins Properties sold the building for $188 million to EQ Office, which eventually sold it to Thomas Properties Group. Currently, there are many notable tenants in the building, including Frost Bank, Morgan Stanley, Ernst & Young, PIMCO, UTIMCO, and Heritage Title Co.
Architecture
Designed by Duda/Paine Architects, LLP with HKS, Inc. as the Architect of Record, the Frost Bank Tower is considered one of the most recognizable buildings in Austin. The building starts with a rectangular shape on the ground that eventually becomes a square point in the crown. The base of the building is expressed in honed finish limestone while the main superstructure of the building is a blue low-e glass skin, which is a thicker type of glass, that covers the entire tower. The Frost Bank Tower is one of only two places in the world with blue low-e glass skin, the other being the Reuters Building in New York City, which was the earlier structure. The folded panes of the building step back to create a segmented pyramidal form. Lighting covers the crown, where a section of the building lights up, and sometimes changes color for special occasions, such as the 2006 Rose Bowl, when the Austin-based University of Texas Longhorns defeated the USC Trojans. More than 200,000 sq ft of glass was used for the facade of the building alone and 45,000 sq ft of glass was used in the crown. The building also contains an 11 level parking garage with spaces for more than 1,400 vehicles.
Critics' responses
The Frost Bank Tower's design received a polarized response upon its completion. Austin American-Statesman columnist John Kelso compared the building's crown to an enormous set of nose hair trimmers. Jeanne Claire van Ryzin, a Statesman art critic, opined that the "jagged form of the crown looks more like a riff on the post-modern ornamentation of the 1980s than any kind of newly inspired form." Austin Chronicle readers voted the Frost Bank Tower as the "Best New Building " in 2004, 2006, 2007, and 2008. It was also voted for best architecture in 2004 and 2005. The newspaper also said that the "owl face of the Frost Bank Tower" helps keep Austin "characteristically weird". The tower was awarded the 2005 International Association of Lighting DesignersAward of Merit for lighting design by Cline Bettridge Bernstein Lighting Design Inc. for its "second set of narrowly focused accent lights that showcase the vertical mullions at the setback near the building top" and "monumental custom sconces that add scale and create a welcoming frame around the opening portals of the lobby". The building also won the 2003 Texas Construction Magazine Award of Merit.
Amenities
The Frost Bank Tower contains a wide variety of amenities. Such amenities in the building include conference facilities, building concierge, 24-hour cardkey access, fully equipped fitness center, state-of-the-art telecommunication systems, tenant controlled HVAC, upscale restaurants, deli/carry-out restaurants, a coffee shop, and a dry-cleaner. Following the builders tradition, a tin Christian cross was embedded into the concrete of each floor during construction, with the last being added on May 27, 2003. The idea came from a story of an immigrant who worked on construction during the 1940s in New York City. Also, a cedar tree was hoisted to the top of the mechanical penthouse during the topping out ceremony.
Position in Austin's skyline
Frost Bank Tower is the fifth tallest building in Austin at, behind The Independent, 360 Condominiums, Fairmont Austin and The Austonian in height. The building covers most of its block, which is located near the center of downtown at 4th Street and Congress Avenue. Its location in the skyline, matched with its height, excited Austinites and was known as a centerpiece to the skyline.
