It’s an Italian Renaissance palace, right in the middle of downtown Fresno. It’s been called one of the Valley’s most beautiful buildings, but it’s been vacant for around 50 years. The story of Fresno’s Bank of Italy building, today on KVPR’s Central Valley Roots.
Bank founder A.P. Giannini rose to fame and fortune making loans to immigrants and businesses as San Francisco worked to rebuild from the 1906 earthquake. His Bank of Italy quickly expanded and by 1916 purchased smaller banks in places like Fresno. In 1918, he opened an eight-story banking palace at the corner of Fulton and Tulare streets in downtown Fresno. Fresno might have been a rough and tumble town, but this building would have been right at home in San Francisco’s financial district.
Architect Charles Franklin brought Italian Renaissance Revival details to this Fresno office tower. Most of the façade is covered in white sculpted terra cotta, with walls clad in brown brick. Near the top, you'll find Italianate arched windows and an ornate terra cotta cornice. The look is equal parts Florence and Venice, think the Doge’s Palace meets the Palazzo Vecchio. In 1927 the bank building was expanded, with a larger banking hall along Tulare Street, and carved marble interior details.
It served as the Fresno headquarters for the bank, which renamed itself the Bank of America in 1930. It was here in 1958 that the modern credit card was born, which you know today as Visa. Fresno was the first test market for Visa, which was then called BankAmericard. But by 1968, Bank of America moved out for a new building a block away.
Despite its beauty and significance, the old bank building has been vacant since the mid 1970s, despite numerous revival plans and listing on the National Register of Historic Places.
