page_title: Custom House Tower
section_title: Current use
hierarchical_section_title: Custom House Tower / Current use
caption_attribution_description: English: Two visitors on the public viewing platform at the top of the Custom House Tower in Boston, MA
context_page_description: The Custom House Tower is a skyscraper in McKinley Square, in the Financial District neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. The original building was constructed in 1837–47 and was designed by Ammi Burnham Young in the Greek Revival style. The tower was designed by Peabody and Stearns and was added in 1913–15. The building is part of the Custom House District, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.
  Standing at 496 ft tall, the building is currently tied with The Hub on Causeway Residential Tower as Boston's 19th-tallest buildings. It is part of the Custom House District, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.
  As of 2016, it houses the Marriott Custom House Hotel.
context_section_description: When custom officials moved into the Thomas P. O'Neill building in 1986, the Custom House was declared "surplus property". On April 16, 1987, the city of Boston purchased the building from the General Services Administration, and the building remained unoccupied and inaccessible for 14 years.
  The Boston Redevelopment Authority, the Landmarks Commission, the Massachusetts Historical Society, the Beal Companies, and Jung Brannen Associates, Inc. all proposed concepts for the use of the building that ranged from museums to offices to residential developments. In 1995, the Beal Companies and Marriott Ownership Resorts International announced plans to develop the building into a timeshare resort, and retained Jung Brannen Associates as architects.  In 1997, work began to convert the building into an 87-room Marriott Vacation Club.
  One of the obstacles in converting the structure was the small amount of usable space on each floor of the tower, a problem that several earlier redevelopment plans faced and failed to overcome. The Jung Brannen team created ways to construct four to five suites per floor, using custom-designed built-in cabinetry and furnishings, to maximize the size and number of suites that could fit in the building.  The end result was 87 one-bedroom suites with 22 different floor plans. Amenities included a private lounge, exercise area and game room and a refurbished observation deck on the tower's 26th floor.  A rotunda-level maritime museum and exhibit room are among the public spaces that occupy the newly refurbished ground floor.
  Landscape designers Pressley Associates, Inc. redesigned the front plaza in 1999, and remarked:
  It provides a new urban linkage space that provides a sense of cohesion between Custom House Tower and Faneuil Hall and Marketplace Center. As part of the current rehabilitation of the Tower to hotel use, the mandate of the landscape architectural design was to unify and revitalize the urban environment while respecting the buildings' historical importance. A 1-acre (4,000 m²) plaza has been designed to encourage pedestrian access and use, and to relate contextually to the adjacent Faneuil Hall Markets and Marketplace Center through the extensive use of large caliper shade trees, brick and granite pavements, and high quality site furnishings. The scope of work provided includes site design, construction documents, approvals process, presentations, resident engineering and construction support services.
  
  The top of the tower is now accessible to the public during limited hours for a small fee. A fenced-in area surrounds the top floor and allows visitors to view the city on all sides of the tower.
caption: Two visitors on the public viewing platform at the top of the Custom House Tower.
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