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27-539: Wells Fargo Center sits on the site of the old Northwestern National Bank Building, which was destroyed in a fire in 1982 . The original design called for a 45-story tower with a square footprint that would have been crowned the tallest building in Minneapolis; however, the site was halved in size, requiring the building's design to be changed to what it is today. Northwestern National, renamed Norwest Corporation , maintained its headquarters here. Despite Norwest's adoption of

54-446: A BTS station and utilize space underneath the rail line and BTS pillar supports. These skywalks have connector ramps which connect stations to malls seamlessly and are paid for by the malls themselves, otherwise the city and BTS fund walkway development. A 50km long extension project was shelved in 2011 due to funding issues, nevertheless the system is growing organically. In Hong Kong , there are numerous foot bridge networks across

81-515: A shopping mall . Non-commercial areas with closely associated buildings, such as university campuses, can often have skyways and/or tunnels connecting buildings. The world's largest discontinuous skyway network – Calgary, Alberta, Canada's " +15 Walkway " system – has a total length of 16 km (9.9 mi). The Minneapolis Skyway System is the world's largest continuous system and spans 9.5 miles (15.3 km) connecting 80 blocks in downtown Minneapolis , Minnesota , United States . On

108-640: A jaw-dropping amount, about the same as the total of all fire damages in the city for the previous 15 to 20 years. The City budget was stressed by the heavy costs for firefighters and police called to the fire, and later costs to repair the street around the block. At its peak, 85% of the Minneapolis Fire Department was battling this blaze, and fire crews from St. Paul and the Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport were called in to staff emptied fire stations around

135-413: A smaller scale, terminals of large airports are often connected by skywalk systems, as at Manchester Airport , United Kingdom; in many airports, retractable jet bridges provide a direct connection between airplanes and terminals. Some cities have the equivalent of a skyway underground, and there are also mixed subway–skyway systems; see underground city . Besides pedestrian safety and convenience,

162-463: Is a 1.3 km (0.8 mi) long skywalk connecting the suburban regions of Bandra and Kurla . Brussels , Belgium has a skyway between the two Belgacom Towers . London has skywalks on the Barbican Estate and London Wall . The City of London Pedway Scheme was devised as part of the post World War II reconstruction plans for London, it was put into effect mainly from the mid-1950s to

189-806: Is located at 90 South 7th Street. Gaviidae Common , a neighboring shopping center , was also designed by Pelli and built at the same time. A branch of the Wells Fargo History Museum was located in the skyway level. The museum's exhibits included an 1863 stagecoach , telegraph equipment, gold nuggets and coins. It closed in September 2020. As of April 2019, Starwood Capital Group acquired Wells Fargo Center for $ 315 million. The sellers were Hines and Blackstone. Minneapolis Thanksgiving Day Fire The Minneapolis Thanksgiving Day fire destroyed two buildings, covering an entire block of Downtown Minneapolis on November 25–26, 1982:

216-583: Is now known as the Wells Fargo Center , after Norwest merged with Wells Fargo . The Donaldson's half of the block is occupied by the Saks Fifth Avenue wing of Gaviidae Common , an upscale shopping mall. The Northwestern National Bank Building was built in 1930 by the architecture firm of Graham, Anderson, Probst & White . The building was a 16-story, 264-foot (80 m) tall steel and concrete structure. The building had an open atrium through

243-742: Is the Zhangjiajie Glass Bridge , which sits between mountain peaks in China. The highest cantilevered skybridge as construction element of building exist atop of Kingdom Centre in Riyadh , Saudi Arabia . The world's highest 2-story skybridge, 170 m above the ground and 58 m long, between the two towers on 41st and 42nd floors in Petronas Twin Towers dual skyscrapers in Kuala Lumpur , Malaysia, which also has an elevated, air-conditioned walkway from

270-545: Is the longest outdoor covered escalator system in the world according to Guinness World Records . Other large systems exist in Tsuen Wan and Mong Kok . The Mumbai Skywalk Project , India is a discontinuous network of over 50 km of skywalks in Mumbai Metropolitan Region , India. The skyways connect Mumbai Suburban Railway stations to important junctions, each 1 to 2 km in length. The first of these

297-578: The Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre to Bukit Bintang shopping district. Malaysia also has the mountainarian tourist pedestrian glass-bottom Langkawi Sky Bridge in Kedah , Langkawi . One of the most famous similar cantilevered skybridges, that looks like uppered ship from the bird's-eye and submarine from the ground, known in Singapore's Marina Bay Sands resort complex of skyscrapers. One of

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324-518: The Norwest Center . The JCPenney 's and IDS Tower buildings on adjacent blocks were connected by skyways , but firefighters were able to contain the fire and prevent it from reaching these buildings. Smoke penetrated into them, and some windows burst from the heat, though they escaped serious damage. Damages to the Donaldsons/Norwest block from the fire were estimated at $ 90–100 million,

351-824: The US Midwest , such as Minneapolis , Saint Paul , Des Moines , Cedar Rapids , Rochester , and Duluth . Most networks in North America are privately owned. Notable exceptions are skyways in Saint Paul and in New York ( High Line ), which are publicly owned. map The highest cantilevered skybridge between separate buildings in the world is in the Raffles City Chongqing skyscrapers complex in Chongqing , China. The world's longest pedestrian hanging skywalk, at 430 meters,

378-454: The Wells Fargo identity after acquiring the latter and moving to San Francisco in 1998, significant regional operations are still maintained in this building. Other major tenants include the law firm of Faegre Drinker and the local office of accounting firm KPMG . It is brilliantly lit at night from sunset through midnight, with floodlamps pointing up from the setback rooftops to illuminate

405-408: The 16-story headquarters of Northwestern National Bank (now Wells Fargo ) and the vacant, partially demolished location formerly occupied by Donaldson's department store, which had recently moved across the street to the new City Center mall. Nobody was injured or killed as a result of the fire, though 10 firefighters were treated at hospitals. The Minneapolis Fire Department quickly determined

432-558: The bridges stopped the project being fully imagined and by the end of the year 2000 nearly all of bridges had been removed, though evidence of the scheme still exists in some places. Sheffield , South Yorkshire has a famous skyway between two blocks of flats in the Park Hill Estate housing block with the phrase "I Love You Will U Marry Me" graffitied onto it. It has since become the subject of songs by local singers and bands such as Arctic Monkeys and Yungblud . The twin towers of

459-448: The cause of the fire as arson. Shortly thereafter, two juveniles were arrested for setting the fire, using an acetylene torch found at the partially demolished Donaldson's site. The charges were later dropped In 1988, Northwestern National Bank (then called Norwest Corporation ) constructed a 57-story César Pelli -designed headquarters on the site of the Bank building. The new headquarters

486-448: The chief reasons assigned by urban planners for skywalk development are decrease of traffic congestion , reduction in vehicular air pollution and separation of people from vehicular noise . A number of cities (for example, Spokane, Washington) have given intricate analysis to skywalk systems employing computer models to optimize skywalk layout. There is debate about the negative impact on urban areas of skyways. Robertson (1988) noted

513-465: The city government, connecting between privately run rail stations or other transport with their own footbridges, and run many kilometers. Skyways usually connect on the first few floors above the ground-level floor, though they are sometimes much higher, as in Petronas Towers . The space in the buildings connected by skyways is often devoted to retail business, so areas around the skyway may operate as

540-538: The city. In 1949, Northwestern National Bank constructed a 157-foot (48 m) high weatherball atop the bank building. The weatherball became such an icon that the bank even incorporated it into its advertising and logo for a time. After the Thanksgiving Day Fire and before the building was imploded, the weatherball was dismantled and stored at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds. The weatherball

567-525: The city. Particularly large networks exists around elevated or at grade MTR stations and connections between malls and housing estates in new town centers. The largest network spans Admiralty , Central and parts of Sheung Wan districts in the CBD and consists of the Central Elevated and Central–Mid-Levels Walkway systems which link up over 40 major office buildings. The Central–Mid-Levels walkway system

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594-440: The mid-1960s and eventually abandoned by the 1980s. Shad Thames has picturesque skyways between former warehouses, used in part to roll barrels between them. Liverpool conceived a project of building skyways around the city centre during the 1960s. The project saw bridges linking key buildings around the city centre, such as James Street railway station , Moorfields railway station and New Hall Place . Crime and low usage of

621-776: The most impressionable hanging pedestrian skybridges, supported by two giant hands, Golden Bridge now attracts tourists in Ba Na Hills near Da Nang , Vietnam. In Bangkok , Thailand there are more than 5.4 km of covered wide dedicated elevated skywalks with lighting. These were developed due to lack of proper sidewalks as well as street hawkers and local merchants taking advantage of any sidewalk space as makeshift commercial real estate . Common reasons skywalks were built include to avoid street pollution, dust, wetness from food vendors and/or rain, potholes, long queues, crowds, and uneven pavement, supporting urbanism but probably most importantly, tourism receipts. Most skywalks connect to

648-465: The negative impacts to street activities, and reductions to the property value at ground level. Woo (2012) found that skywalk systems could be negatively associated with promoting consumerism. Cui (2015) called for more research into the impact of skyways in developing countries. The Cincinnati Skywalk in Ohio was dismantled because of these concerns. There are significant skyway networks in many cities in

675-670: The sides of the building. Despite this, it is still much more energy efficient than the previous building and in 2000, it was recognized by the United States Environmental Protection Agency as one of the 100 most energy efficient buildings in the US. In 1989, the building was praised by the Urban Land Institute , who honored it with their Award for Excellence in Large Scale Office Development. It

702-419: The upper floors, which acted as a chimney for the fire . Those upper 11-12 stories of the building were gutted by the fire. The bank vaults and safe deposit boxes, located in the basement and sub-basements, were undamaged in the fire, though they could not be reached and opened for several days. Due to the severe damage to the structure resulting from the fire, it was imploded on March 11, 1984 to make way for

729-925: Was never restored and, in 2000, it was scrapped. Skyway A skyway , skybridge , skywalk , or sky walkway is an elevated type of pedway connecting two or more buildings in an urban area , or connecting elevated points within mountainous recreational zones. Urban skyways very often take the form of enclosed or covered footbridges that protect pedestrians from the weather. Open-top modern skyways in mountains now often have glass bottoms. Sometimes enclosed urban skywalks are made almost totally from glass, including ceilings, walls and floors. Also, some urban skyways function strictly as linear parks designed for walking. In North America skyways are usually owned by businesses, and are therefore not public spaces (compare with sidewalk ). However, in Asia, such as Bangkok's and Hong Kong's skywalks, they are built and owned separately by

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