Rollins International
You are here
Office Tower (Rollins International)
1970–1972, Platt Associates, with W. Ellis Preston. 2200 Concord Pike (U.S. 202)
-
(Photograph by Matthew Aungst) -
(Photograph by Matthew Aungst) -
(Photograph by Matthew Aungst)
In a rags-to-riches transformation, John W. Rollins, who had grown up poor in Georgia, scraped together $500 in 1954 to start a truck leasing business in Lewes, Delaware. It was the start of an empire that would produce annual revenues of $110 million by 1970. He proposed a city center complex in Wilmington in 1966, but a permit was refused, as many old-line civic leaders looked down on him. Undaunted, he moved his headquarters to suburban Concord Pike, breaking ground for this fifteen-story, white-marble-clad tower. The tallest building in Delaware when built, it proclaimed the presence of Rollins for miles and peered down upon the golf course of the DuPont Country Club (BR34). The soaring white piers culminating in arches beneath the cornice recall the decorative modernism of Minoru Yamasaki's architecture of the 1960s. The Platt firm of Wichita, Kansas, worked with a Wilmington architect, Preston. Pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca purchased the tower in 2004 and have painted it brown.
Writing Credits
×
Data
-
Location: Wilmington, DelawareRegional Overviews:Architect:Styles:no metadata availableMaterials:
What's Nearby
Citation
W. Barksdale Maynard, "Office Tower (Rollins International)", [Wilmington, Delaware], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/DE-01-BR32.
Print Source
Buildings of Delaware, W. Barksdale Maynard. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2008, 53-53.
If SAH Archipedia has been useful to you, please consider supporting it.
SAH Archipedia tells the story of the United States through its buildings, landscapes, and cities. This freely available resource empowers the public with authoritative knowledge that deepens their understanding and appreciation of the built environment. But the Society of Architectural Historians, which created SAH Archipedia with University of Virginia Press, needs your support to maintain the high-caliber research, writing, photography, cartography, editing, design, and programming that make SAH Archipedia a trusted online resource available to all who value the history of place, heritage tourism, and learning.