Five Buildings That Have Been Nicknamed “Death Stars”

Imposing buildings are not uncommon in big cities across the United States. They often define a city’s skyline. Large and striking exteriors often dominate the neighborhood. With more interest in building environmentally conscious and sustainable buildings, these buildings often take on a personality of their own. Often, they dwarf their surroundings and just do not fit in.

Critics of these styles of buildings have called them “Death Stars”, the mobile space stations and galactic weapons featured in George Lucus’ Star Wars films. The imposing Death Stars could destroy an entire planet. In the current Star Wars film, “Rogue One”, a group of rebels try to steal the design plans for the Death Star so that they can destroy it. Buildings that look like battle stations, are imposing, and seem out of character in a neighborhood qualify as “Death Stars”. Despite their criticism and community resistance, these buildings are successfully going up in big cities across the country despite being out of character with their surroundings.

Here are five buildings that have been nicknamed “Death Stars”.

51 Astor Place, Manhattan, New York

Astor Place in located in eastern to Village was named for John Jacob Astor, one of the richest men in the world, after his death in 1848. The small 2 block street was home to an opera house, library and later low-rise brick tenements. During the twentieth century, the lot at 51 Astor Place was home to Cooper Union College’s School of Engineering. Despite resistance of the neighborhood, Cooper Union leased the property to Edward J. Minskoff Equities. The artsy, edgy block between 3rd and 4th Avenues is home to tattoo parlors and punk clothing stores. Artwork decorates the neighborhood lamp posts. The thought of putting in a modern office building that takes up most of the block was a difficult idea for the casual neighborhood to swallow.

Minskoff has leased the land for $97 million for 99 years. The new building located at 51 Astor cost $300 million to build and opened in 2013. Mr. Minskoff hoped the office building would attract start up tech companies because of the youthful, all night neighborhood as opposed to midtown Manhattan which goes to sleep at 5 pm every evening. The 13 story building has 430,000 square feet and was designed by Fumihikomaki. It was built with energy efficiency and environmental sustainability in mind. Its sleek exterior features dark mirrored glass walls. The interior has University School of risk Management has leased space on the 2nd floor. There is a large plaza open to the public during the day. The average cost to lease space is between $80 and $115 per square foot, high rent for the area. The building has great amenities and is sleek, but just does not fit in at all with the East Village neighborhood.

Caltrans District 7, Los Angeles, California

The California and Los Angeles Department of Transportation (Caltrans) built this imposing building which opened in September 2004. Located at 100 South Main Street in Downtown Los Angeles, the District 7 building has a 13 story futuristic metallic edifice and occupies an entire block. . Designed by Thomas Magne, the building was constructed to be imposing yet environmentally sound. The History Channel documented its construction in the program “Modern Marvels”.

The Caltrans District 7 building is expansive with 716,200 square feet of space. It has an underground garage with 1142 parking spaces for employees of Caltrans. The building has a public plaza. “Motordom” is a 4 story light installation. The 3rd floor conference room has a unique glass floor. The imposing building looks futuristic as well as dark. This has made it appealing to Hollywood which has used it for the backdrop of films such as “The Island” and “Mr. and Mrs. Smith”, television shows including “Alias”, music videos such as Ushers, and car commercials. The dramatic and dark futuristic building is aptly called a “Death Star”.

San Francisco Federal Building, California

This government building was built to supplement the Phillip Burton Federal Building and is one of the most disliked buildings by its employees. The 18 story, 605,000 square foot building is located at 90 7th Street at the corner of Mission in the “South of Market” neighborhood of San Francisco. Construction began in 2003 and was completed in 2007.

The San Francisco Federal Building was designed by Thomas Mayne of the Morphosis architecture firm. Designed as a “green” building, it consumes less than half the power a standard office building consumes. Its exterior has juxtaposing dark gray concrete walls with perforated metal panels. The windows are “hatch-like”. Not only does the dark, imposing building overpower the street, many of its 2,400 employees have complaints. They do not feel the building is thermally comfortable and often have to open the windows to cool off. The building has poor lighting and bad acoustics. The “green” building features elevators that only stop at every third floor with stairways between. There are elevators that stop at each floor which quickly become overcrowded. The building also does not have an indoor cafeteria as most government buildings do. Instead, there is an outdoor plaza to encourage employees to walk and exercise.

2000 Avenue of the Stars, Los Angeles, California

The building located at 2000 Avenue of the Stars in Century City’s Century Park is home to offices including Hollywood agent powerhouse, Creative Artists Agency. Other companies that lease space at the location are UBS, Annenberg Foundation, and Empire Capital Management. It was built in 2006 and has 12 stories with over 785,000 square feet of office space.

The expansive building features a 2 level lobby and a “signature aperture” to let light into the otherwise dark building. The building was built with environmental sustainability in mind. Otherwise, the building creates a dramatic landscape in Century Park, once home to a ranch and then to 20th Century Fox Studios. The battleship feel of the building may fit in Hollywood.

222 Second Street, San Francisco, California

San Francisco’s 222 Second Street building has been called “severe yet sleek”. The building opened in March 2016 and a major lease belongs to LinkedIn. The company has headquarters close to San Francisco and hopes to combine most of its employees in the Second Street building. The modern skyscraper is located on the southern corner of Second and Howard Streets in the “South of Market” district of San Francisco.

The building has 16 stories in a rectangular shape and 10 stories in the shape of a square. Designed by Thomas Phifer of Tishman Speyer, the exterior of the building has been called dark and gloomy. The exterior features severe angles and blunt cubes that look like a pleated cape…like Dark Vader? Office space takes up most of the building’s space. The ground floor includes 2,209 square feet of retail space. There is a large 8,600 square space open to the public that features 3 large paintings by Frank Stella worth $1 million. Critics who have called this building a “Death Star” point out that other recently built buildings in the area have tried to fit in to the well-established neighborhood. The building at 222 Second Street is aesthetically out of place and “alien” in nature.