Minerva Building design changes and a further increase in height, to 53 floors and . Its location marks the Eastern gateway to the City and the building might have acted as a focus for the regeneration of the eastern City fringe. The site is outside the strategic views of St. Paul's, and does not contain listed buildings, although it does infringe upon a conservation area. It also lies within one of the three proposed viewing cones for the Tower of London, as do 30 St Mary Axe, Heron Tower and Tower 42. Although the official height was , the building was claimed
St Mary Axe of the former buildings of the Baltic Exchange and the UK Chamber of Shipping (destroyed by an IRA bomb in 1992). The street originates as a turn off Houndsditch at its northern end, with traffic flowing one-way southbound, and it originates at its southern end as a turn off Leadenhall Street, with traffic flowing one-way northbound. Both one-way portions of St Mary Axe converge at Bevis Marks, where traffic is forced westward into Camomile Street. "Number 70 St Mary Axe" appears in several novels by the British author Tom Holt as the address of a firm of sorcerers headed by