Place St. Charles, the office tower at 201 St. Charles Avenue in New Orleans’ Central Business District, is one of the tallest buildings in New Orleans and Louisiana. The tower rises about 645 feet and is commonly listed as a 53-story building, placing it just behind Hancock Whitney Center in the city’s skyline.
Completed in the mid-1980s, Place St. Charles was built on the site of the historic St. Charles Hotel. The project added a major postmodern office tower to the downtown financial district at a prominent address near Canal Street, the French Quarter and the city’s core business corridor.
The building was designed by Moriyama & Teshima Architects, with The Mathes Group serving as local architect. Its design uses a granite and glass facade, vertical window lines and a stepped crown, while the lower levels include French Quarter-style balcony elements meant to respond to the surrounding downtown streetscape.
Place St. Charles is primarily an office property, but it also includes retail and parking uses. Building materials describe more than 1 million square feet of total Class A space, with retail on the first two floors, parking on floors 3 through 13 and office space on the upper floors.
The property has also been known by other names, including Bank One Center and First NBC Center. Today, it remains an active downtown office tower with tenants in law, finance, real estate and professional services, along with retail and food-service space serving workers and visitors.
For New Orleans commercial real estate, Place St. Charles remains an important downtown asset because of its scale, location and tenant mix. It is not the tallest building in the city by height, but it is one of the skyline’s most significant office towers and a key property in the Central Business District.
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