KOIN Tower (formerly KOIN Center) is a , 35-story, skyscraper in Portland, Oregon, United States. The building, the third-tallest in the city, was designed by the firm of Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Partnership and opened in 1984 at a cost of .
History
The building was originally named Fountain Plaza, but it quickly came to be known as the KOIN Center reflecting the name of its highest-profile occupant, KOIN television, the CBS affiliate in Portland. The building was controversial while being constructed because its location blocked the view of Mount Hood that had long been seen by drivers emerging from the Vista Ridge Tunnels under Portland's West Hills going eastbound on U.S. Route 26.
KOIN Center was the first building completed in a projected three-block development sponsored by the Portland Development Commission (PDC) that also included the city blocks immediately to the north and east.
The PDC had a number of goals in sponsoring the Fountain Plaza project. One was to provide a link between the government and central business core of downtown and the nearly completed South Auditorium redevelopment district immediately to the south. This redevelopment project, initiated in 1960, had been the first for the PDC and, though controversial at the time, has been considered by some to be one of the nation's few successful such projects from that era. Reflecting that goal, the southwest entrance to the KOIN Center faces its own street-corner plaza diagonally across the intersection from the Ira C. Keller Fountain, making a visual and pedestrian connection that important public space. The Keller Fountain, built in 1970 and originally named the Forecourt Fountain in reference to the adjacent Municipal (now Keller) Auditorium, was described by New York Times architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable as maybe "one of the most important urban spaces since the Renaissance." It is this fountain that gave the name to the KOIN Center project. A second goal of the PDC in proposing this mixed-use building was to promote the type of condominium apartment living common in the central business districts of large cities such as New York City and Chicago but not in Portland at the time. a purchase that included the two remaining building sites for potential high-rise office and residential development. The condos on the upper floors are owned separately and were unaffected by the default. ScanlanKemperBard bought the office tower for $88 million in January 2015. In 2016, the building underwent major upgrades, including a full renovation of the main lobby, improvements throughout the building and some vacant suites. The lobby is home to a 32-screen, media wall.
Following its departure from Hampton Opera Center in the Central Eastside, All Classical Radio officially opened its new headquarters in KOIN Tower on December 8, 2024. Located on the building's third floor, the facility has a total space of , which included five production studios, a music library, an art gallery, and a cafe.
Design
thumb|left|The center from below
KOIN Tower occupies an entire city block and is clad in orange brick and trimmed with white limestone at the base; the sloping roof forming the pyramidal crown is prefinished galvanized steel. In addition to the KOIN broadcast studios and offices below grade, the building has three principal functional programs, each with its own entrance and distinctive facade—commercial/office on SW Columbia Street, retail and former theater space on the southwest corner, and residential condominiums on SW Third Avenue. In addition, a restaurant space has its own entrance on SW Clay Street. Thus, the building relates to its surroundings in several distinct ways. Of these, most important is the southwest corner as an extension of the public space represented by the Keller Fountain and adjacent Keller Auditorium. A feature unique in Portland, and resulting from the multi-block nature of the original project, is the location of the entrance to the underground parking and loading docks on the adjacent block to the east.
Tenants
There are four distinct uses for the KOIN Tower, each hosted in a separate part of the building. The first three floors house mixed retail and office space. The ground-floor restaurant space, originally occupied by a branch of the Seattle-based Thirteen Coins,