There are three tall buildings downtown: IDS, blue and beloved. Wells Fargo, slim and urbane. Then there's the big weird one with the glowing pie plate on top. No one ever knew what to call it. Well, it was 225 South Sixth Street Tower, located at 225 S. 6th Street, but it was renamed last week. What? you ask breathlessly. What gassy make-believe name did it get? 225 Sixth Plaza Square PointeCentre? ¶ No, it's Capella Tower, named after its new tenant. We're lucky the company has a euphonious appellation; if the law firm of Dorcus, Stinque & Aeirwacks decides to occupy 35 floors, it would be Dorcus Tower, and there's nothing we could do about it.
The new name will fit nicely, because it replaces a name that never caught the public's imagination. It used to be FirstBank, one of those financial institutions that changes its name one day and leaves you with unused checks you never feel comfortable using.
Will we see other rechristenings in the months to come? My editor suggested renaming Block E "Hooters Square," but that would indicate a peculiar physical deformity. The Star Tribune building has the name in stone on the façade, so you can't do much with it -- unless you knock off some letters and open a BBQ joint called St. Rib.
City Center will always keep its name, since the alterative -- "Urban Multi-Use Light-Purple Anti-Human Concrete Bunker" -- doesn't look good in neon.
The most beloved buildings never change their names. The Lumber Exchange will ever be so, even though the days of dragging a log into the lobby and swapping it for another are long gone. The IDS? Good luck dynamiting that name from the public mind. I pity the company that tries to rename it Triox Center or Finance One CorpPlace because no one will call it that. Even if the economy collapses and every store leaves but one, it'll still be IDS.
After its main tenant, the Incredible Dollar Store.
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