Rivergate Tower

리버게이트 타워

Rivergate Tower, nicknamed the Beer Can Building, is a 454-foot (138 m) skyscraper in Tampa, Florida. It has 31 floors and is the seventh tallest building in the city. It is a round tower, covered in limestone, and is easy to spot on Tampa's skyline. Its main tenant is SouthState Bank.

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At a glance

Country: United States
Location: Tampa, USA
Built: 1988
Height: 139 m
Type: Skyscraper

Quick answers

Where is Rivergate Tower?

Rivergate Tower is in Tampa, USA, United States.

When was Rivergate Tower built?

Rivergate Tower was built in 1988.

How tall is Rivergate Tower?

Rivergate Tower is about 139 m tall.

Tampa's brick-red cylindrical tower, nicknamed the "Beer Can".

It was built from 1986 to 1988 for 150 million dollars as the headquarters of North Carolina National Bank (NCNB), an earlier name of NationsBank. Its architect, Harry Wolf, meant the cylinder to symbolize a lighthouse on the skyline, but most people see something else, which is how it got its beer-can nickname.

Numbers from nature

Harry Wolf based the building's measurements on the Fibonacci sequence, in which each number is the sum of the two before it (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8 and so on). That is why every tile on the floor and every window pane is bigger than the one beside it. The outside is faced with French and Texas limestone, which makes Rivergate Tower one of the tallest limestone buildings in the world.

Awards and owners

The design won a 1993 National Honor Award from the American Institute of Architects. On April 18, 2012, the Florida chapter of the AIA put the tower on its list called Florida Architecture: 100 Years. 100 Places. The building was bought by In-Rel Properties at a foreclosure sale in 2011 for 22 million dollars, far less than its building cost. Cars park in a two-story underground structure with 731 spaces.

On the riverfront

Rivergate stands next to Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park to its north, and the Tampa Riverwalk along the Hillsborough River runs just to its west. A cube-shaped building next to the tower holds the Florida Museum of Photographic Arts, a bank and a cafe. The contrast between the round tower and the square building beside it is part of its charm.

Fun facts

Its round shape earned it the nickname 'Beer Can'.
The tower's measurements follow the Fibonacci number pattern.
Its round shape was meant to look like a lighthouse, but most people see a beer can.
It is covered in limestone, so it counts among the tallest limestone buildings anywhere.
In 2011 it was sold at a foreclosure sale for 22 million dollars.