Tampa's Gothic pride is on display 42 stories and 579 feet in the air: It's tough to get up close and personal

Tampa doesn’t have any grand cathedrals, palaces or turreted castles from ancient times. As a town and city that was still deciding whether it would or would not incorporate as recently as the mid-nineteenth century (it was first incorporated in 1849 and was reincorporated as a town on December 15, 1855), this office building is our towering example of grand, gothic-style architecture, at least as you study the top floors and its roof. 100 North Tampa Street, known as the AmSouth Building, is 579 feet (176 m) and 42 floors. It is the tallest building in Tampa and on Florida’s Gulf Coast, and the ninth-tallest building in Florida. It was completed in 1992 and contains 552,000 square feet of office space. I have spent many hours in the conference rooms that are located on the 40th floor directly under the protruding cone-like gable roof section on the top right. (I understand that satellite dishes hide in the gable sections on each end.) The building is mostly flat on top and the rising sections conceal mechanical equipment. (There were special architectural tours conducted by the staff of the Tampa Museum of Art in the 1990s that took small groups into Tampa's more interesting buildings and most included a visit to the to the roofs. The brave were allowed to climb if possible up skinny ladders to the very tippy-top and peek out.) When 100 North Tampa was finished it was the tallest building in Tampa. The exterior is clad in Rosa Dante granite from Spain, the windows are pewter tinted and the roof is made of metal. It was designed by HKS, Inc., the international architecture firm that has offices in Tampa. The views are awesome. (And the motley collection of rather large birds that swoop and circle by the windows is a bit creepy at times. Buzzards at eye level are strange and unnerving.)