The tower was built for the Bank of California, to house its Portland operations, which had outgrown their space in the historic Bank of California Building in which they had been based since 1925, located just over one block to the east. Construction began in 1967. The full-block site was previously occupied, in its southeast quadrant, by the Rosenblatt Building, which was built in 1889 and demolished in early 1967. Two theaters had occupied other portions of the block, the United Artists Theatre and the Liberty Theatre (previously known as the Music Box Theatre).