Riverview Tower

The Riverview Tower is an office high-rise located at 900 Gay Street in Knoxville, Tennessee, United States. Completed in 1985, the 24-story structure is Knoxville's second-tallest building, and along with its sister building, the First Tennessee Plaza, anchors Knoxville's downtown office market. Since 2003, BB&T has been the building's primary tenant.[1]

Riverview Tower

The Riverview Tower occupies the northern half of Gay Street's 900-block, which is bounded by Gay Street, Hill Avenue, State Street, and Main Street. The Andrew Johnson Building occupies the southwestern section of the block, and the two buildings share a central courtyard. The building contains 367,000 square feet (34,100 m2) of office space, and includes a 420-space parking garage.[2] Along with BB&T, tenants include IBM, Alcoa, Union Planters, Lawler-Wood, and various financial groups and law firms.

The building was originally planned in the early 1980s as office space for the City & County Bank, headed by C. H. Butcher.[3] Butcher's brother, Jake Butcher, was head of the United American Bank, which had built the First Tennessee Plaza in the late-1970s. Before the Riverview Tower was completed, however, the FDIC raided the Butcher brothers' banks, leading to the banks' collapse and the Butcher brothers' subsequent convictions on charges of bank fraud.[4] The FDIC purchased the Riverview from the building's developer, Lawler-Wood, in 1985. The first tenants moved into the Riverview in 1987.[3]

In 1990, Florida real estate developer Martin O'Boyle bought the Riverview from the FDIC for $18.5 million, using money he had borrowed from Providence-based Textron Collective Investment Trust. As a result of a lawsuit with O'Boyle in 1995, however, Textron became the building's owner. In 2001, Textron sold the building to its original developer, Lawler-Wood, for $22.2 million.[3] Lawler-Wood then sold the Riverview to Texas real estate investment firm Behringer Harvard for $41 million in 2005.[5]

See also

References
  1. "BB&T to Move to Riverview," Knoxville News-Sentinel, 8 March 2003.
  2. Lawler-Wood Selected Properties — Riverview Tower. Retrieved: 17 June 2010.
  3. Bill Brewer, "Riverview Tower Sold to Lawler-Wood," Knoxville News-Sentinel, 3 January 2001.
  4. Bruce Wheeler, Knoxville, Tennessee: A Mountain City in the New South (Knoxville, Tenn.: University of Tennessee Press, 2005), pp. 167-168.
  5. "Riverview Tower Sells for $41 Million," Knoxville News-Sentinel, 6 October 2005.

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