Union Bank Tower

The Union Bank Tower, formerly known as the Union Bank of California Tower and originally as the Bank of California building, is an 82m, 15-story office building completed in 1969 in downtown Portland, Oregon. It was briefly the tallest building in the city when it topped-out in 1968, but was soon eclipsed by the Georgia-Pacific Building .HistoryThe tower was built for the Bank of California, to house its Portland operations, which had outgrown their space in the historic Bank of California Building in which they had been based since 1925, located just over one block to the east. Construction began in 1967. The full-block site was previously occupied, in its southeast quadrant, by the Rosenblatt Building, which was built in 1889 and demolished in early 1967. Two theaters had occupied other portions of the block, the United Artists Theatre and the Liberty Theatre (previously known as the Music Box Theatre).The bank building was completed in late 1969, and the bank opened its offices in the new tower on December 8, 1969, vacating its 1925 building. The 15-story building was originally known as the Bank of California building (or simply the Bank of California), and informally as the Bank of California Tower.It was originally owned by the bank, but in 1972 a pending sale of the building to developer Harry Mittleman was reported. Mittleman completed the purchase in that year and moved into an office on the building's 15th floor. The 1972 sale included a leaseback agreement under which the Bank of California would lease the building for up to 35 years. In 1986, after Mittleman's death, the building was owned by his estate, but the "long-term master lease" was planned to be transferred from the Bank of California to a partnership of Melvin Mark Properties and Douglas Goodman in January 1987. The bank continued to be the building's primary tenant, leasing 56,000ft2 of the overall 197000ft2 of space at that time.