Initially conceived in 1981 as The Sohio Building — before Standard Oil of Ohio (Sohio) was acquired by BP (British Petroleum) — the 45-story BP America Building, with its attached 8-story atrium, was completed in 1985. With the subsequent relocation of BP offices, the structure is now known simply as 200 Public Square.

Towering over the eastern flank of Public Square, Cleveland’s 3rd-tallest building serves as a visual counterpoint to the elder Terminal Tower across the Square. The new and massive office structure, fashioned to consolidate all of the headquarters operations of BP in North America within its 1.2 million square feet, was designed by the architectural firm of Hellmuth, Obata & Kassabaum.

The building is a tall and broad slab, kinked slightly at midpoint to allow each of its flared wings to align perpendicular to the two radiating frontage streets of Superior Avenue and Euclid Avenue. The wings of its slab are further saw-toothed and stair-stepped to reduce the building’s apparent visual bulk, while also articulating that bulk and offering multiple corner offices per floor. Its hefty atrium, also flared at midpoint, and also stair-stepped, provides an indoor landscaped and watered 7-story volume that observes Public Square and the Soldiers and Sailors Monument through its fully glazed western face. The entire structure is clad in over four thousand slabs of two reddish tones of granite with bronzed windows.

Construction of 200 Public Square required demolition of two aging local landmarks. The 1892 Cuyahoga Building, a fine example of the work of Daniel H. Burnham, occupied a northern portion of the new building’s site. Occupying a southerly portion was the 16-story Williamson Building of 1900, by George B. Post & Sons (in its day, the tallest structure in town). The tower’s construction also required what were then the deepest concrete caissons in North America. To reach a depth of 240 feet, each caisson had to be filled with the equivalent of the volume of up to 63 cement mixers.

Today 200 Public Square remains an iconic structure to Clevelanders. It is one of four distinctly unique profiles forming the City’s central skyline, joining The Terminal Tower, Key Tower, and the United States Courthouse (at the Superior end of the Detroit-Superior Bridge spanning the Cuyahoga River).