The Ziggurat

The Ziggurat is a ten-story, stepped pyramidal office building and adjacent five-story concrete parking structure located at 707 3rd Street in West Sacramento, California, on the shore of the Sacramento River. Designed by Sacramento architect Edwin Kado to resemble the ancient Mesopotamian ziggurats, the building was built by the Money Store in 1997 and is currently leased by the California Department of General Services (DGS) as its headquarters since 2001.Located on more than 7acre adjacent to the Tower Bridge, the unusually designed office building contains more than 320000sqft of usable office area.ArchitectureArchitect Edwin Kado describes the building as follows: "I originally designed a building that cantilevered toward the river, so it was like a pyramid upside down. It was 12 stories, and so when you got to the top floor, it was 120 feet toward the river. When I presented it to the president of the Money Store, he thought it was interesting, but he wanted a symmetrical building... I suggested this shape...because that shape connotes stability, and I thought it would be a good image for the Money Store."Structure and exteriorThe structure of the building is a standard column and beam steel superstructure, set upon a pre-stressed concrete pile foundation system. The structural steel is designed to resist a seismic event of up to 6.9 on the Richter scale, an extremely high standard for the Sacramento area. The exterior skin of the building consists of Minnesota Gray Buff limestone panels. Each panel weighs over four tons.