Gordon Beckman on designing 615 South College tower as a ’70 mph’ building for Charlotte’s skyline

In an article from the Charlotte Business Journal, Gordon Beckman spoke about designing the tower project, 615 South College in Charlotte, North Carolina. The article is included with a slideshow of 19 photos onsite at 615 South College.

“This was an opportunity to be big, bold, robust — this powerful thing on the expressway on the front line of the city,” said Beckman, a partner at Atlanta architecture firm John Portman & Associates. “I call this a 70 mph building because you’re going down the expressway and you see this thing — it’s memorable.”

Beckman’s concept has now become an 18-story, 370,000-square-foot office building anchoring the Stonewall side of uptown, a corridor receiving $2.7 billion in investment in current and upcoming real estate projects. 615 South College, developed by Portman Holdings, is one of the first to deliver on the crane-ridden street and has already landed tenants like Regions Bank, BDO and WeWork.