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The 'Regions Center' (formerly the 'AmSouth Center', most often called the 'AmSouth-Sonat Tower', and originally the 'First National-Southern Natural Building') is a 119 meter (390 foot) tall, 30 story office tower located at northwest corner of 20th Street and 5th Avenue North in Birmingham, Alabama, USA. It served as the corporate headquarters for AmSouth Bancorporation from 1972 until 2006. The building now serves as the corporate headquarters for Regions Financial Corporation.
Completed in 1972, the modernist-style skyscraper was designed by Welton Becket & Associates of Houston with Charles H. McCauley Associates serving as the local associated firm. Built as a partnership between First National Bank and Southern Natural Gas Corporation, its original names was the "First National-Southern Natural Building". First National changed its name to AmSouth Bancorporation later in 1972, with Southern Natural Gas changing its name to Sonat Inc in the early 1980s, and the building was then given its most familiar name.
The reflective glass skin stretches between a generously-scaled black granite base story and a louvered steel penthouse enclosure. The building is set back from the corner with a raised terrace plaza. A one story banking lobby facing 20th Street closes off the north side of a sunken courtyard which serves the basement-level cafeteria.
During the Christmas season colored gels are illuminated in each panel of the glass curtain wall, creating an enormous lit graphical display visible on the skyline from well outside the city. The east side is a Christmas tree, the south a wreath, the west a candy cane, and the north a stocking.
Sonat merged with Houston based El Paso Corporation in 1999. El Paso still has a presence in the building with Southern Natural Gas using it as its headquarters. On January 29, 2007, Southern Natural announced that it would move its headquarters to the Colonial Brookwood Center, located in one of Birmingham's suburbs.
In November 2006, the name of the building officially changed to the Regions Center after AmSouth and Regions merged. The Regions logo has replaced the AmSouth logo on the top of the building.

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See also

See also

★ Regions Financial Corporation

★ AmSouth Bancorporation

★ Sonat Inc / El Paso Corporation

★ Birmingham, Alabama