Robert B. Atwood Building

The Robert B. Atwood Building is an office building located at 550 West 7th Avenue in Downtown Anchorage, Alaska. The building houses government offices for the State of Alaska. Standing at 20 stories and 81 m (265 ft), it is the second-tallest building in Alaska. The building was formerly known as the Bank of America Center. Together with the slightly taller Conoco-Phillips Building, the skyscraper defines Anchorage's skyline.FacilitiesA landscaped plaza is featured on the building's east side. The single-story basement is used as a parking level. There are nine elevators in the building. Amenities include teleconferencing-enabled conference rooms, vending and break rooms, and a central mail room.Parking garageThe State of Alaska completed a new parking garage in 2008 across the street from the Robert B. Atwood Building. The garage is named the Linny Pacillo Parking Garage after local parking activist Carolyn 'Linny' Pacillo who, with her sister, Susan, became famous during the 1990s for wearing tutus and plugging parking meters downtown in protest to strict parking enforcement. The sisters were dubbed the Parking Fairies. Linny Pacillo died in 2006.Involvement in seismic researchIn 2003, the United States Geological Survey installed a network of accelerometers throughout the building to monitor the effects of earthquakes on tall buildings. The Atwood Building was selected due to the unique properties of the "Bootlegger Cove Formation" soil it stands on, and the historical seismicity of the region (see Good Friday earthquake.) The mission of the research is to better understand the effects of seismicity on similar buildings to better prepare them for future large earthquakes.