That’s true for almost any skyscraper that carries a proper name. The prestige comes from the name of the building, which is the only thing visible to outsiders. There’s no reason for the company to physically occupy the whole building. The amount of space used goes up and down as the company moves physical processes around.
Buildings can be filled, though. In Rochester, the tallest building is the Xerox Tower. In the 90s they needed so much space they filled the Tower and bled over into other office buildings. Since then, they’ve shrunk and shifted many of their operations into the suburbs. When Paetec announced it was going to replace Midtown with a skyscraper taller than Xerox nobody thought they were going to use every floor. But it’s their name on the building and that’s all that counts. (Note to outsiders: their current plans are for a 3-story building. Tallest buildings are about ego and nothing but ego.)
Nitpick…
The Hilton building[specify] is technically taller than the Capitol building, however it is on lower ground, making the Capitol building higher. A city statute does not allow buildings to be built higher than the Capitol building
I remember when the Hilton was built (Forum 30 was original name)…
We called it the “Prick of the Prairie.”
To pull together the above points, there are three different things:
[ul]
[li]ownership[/li][li]occupancy[/li][li]naming rights[/li][/ul]
Commonly the biggest occupier has the option of either purchasing the naming rights, or may negotiate them as part of the lease. If the owner is a large corporation that likes to keep a high profile they will probably keep the naming rights and brand the building even if they use very little space in it. A common owner of large buildings has been life insurance companies. They are usually subject to strict laws on investment, and large office buildings have (at lease in in the past) been a common vehicle for investment. But the whole point of such investment is to make money, not to fill the building with their own offices. For both banks and insurance companies the days of floor upon floor of lowly clerks grinding through the paperwork is long gone. So they occupy much less space than they once did.
The tallest building in San Jose is a high rise condominium, The 88. It’s just barely taller than the City Hall. Of course, in San Jose, things are skewed because of the height restrictions imposed by the flight paths for the airport. It’s under 300 feet.
The second tallest building in Brooklyn, NY (second only by two feet) is the Williamsburgh Savings Bank Tower, called that despite the fact that the Williamsburgh Savings Bank (as such) hasn’t existed for years.
The tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, is not owned or primarily occupied by a bank. The 2nd tallest building in the world, Tapei 101, is not owned or primarily occupied by a bank. The 5th tallest building in the world, the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, is not owned or primarily occupied by a bank. Etc.
If what your father means is that the tallest building in a city will always be a bank’s own building - ie. fully or mostly occupied by the bank, named after it, etc, then he’s categorically wrong. If he means that the tallest building in a city will always have a bank as one of its tenants, he’s probably still wrong. If he means that the tallest building in a city will often have a bank as one of it’s tenants he’s probably right, but it’s not a very interesting claim.
