Vintage Photos of Cleveland's Erieview Tower and Plaza as Cleveland's 4th Tallest Building is Set for Second Life

In 1964, Erieview Plaza and Tower was built at the corner of East 12th St. and Rockwell Ave.

Originally envisioned by I.M. Pei as part of a larger redevelopment that would include greenspaces and other buildings, the tower, currently the 4th tallest building in Cleveland, was built by another architect and only parts of Pei's plan were accomplished by other architects over the years across what was planned as a 163-acre, two phase development.

It was also derided by Ada Louise Huxtable, The New York Times architecture critic, in the early 70s, who wrote, "The Erieview project stands as a kind of monument to everything that was wrong with urban renewal thinking in America in the 1960's. There is a large, abortive plan by the architect I. M. Pei, long on desolate, overscaled spaces, destructive of cohesive urbanism and defiantly antihuman."

It is finding a second life as a nearly $100-million project is inthe works to turn the lower floors into the first W Hotel in Ohio and the upper floors into 227 upscale apartments.

Here's what Erieview has looked like through the years.

All photos via The Cleveland Memory Project.