The building was designed and constructed in response to the demand for suitable and adequate quarters for the growing services of the Federal Government in Cincinnati.

The site for the first – the southwest corner of Fourth and Vine Streets – was bought in 1851 in response to a general demand in the city that scattered Federal offices be assembled.

The act authorizing construction of a new building was passed by Congress, March 18, 1872, and signed by President Ulysses S. Grant immediately, but it was not until April 1874 that the last of the business houses on the land had been torn down.

Nearly half a century went by, and then again, in the 1930s, the demand arose for suitable and adequate quarters for the growing services of the Federal Government in Cincinnati.

Calvin H. Cool, Treasury Department Construction Engineer, was in charge in Cincinnati for the two years of building, with Joseph Areokelan and O.V.

These agencies were accommodated in a nine-story extended U-shaped building with its symmetrical long facade facing south onto East Fifth Street.

The structural system is steel frame, the floors and roof are reinforced concrete and the exterior walls are clad in limestone set atop a dark granite base.

The block-long south facade has seventeen fenestration bays as defined by vertical recessed window and spandrel panel openings.

The vertical thrust of the recessed window openings is interrupted by a Greek key belt course at the fourth floor level and terminated by a carved frieze and projecting cornice at the top of the facade.

The view of this facade has been compromised by the installation of a pick-up/drop-off hub for the Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority's Metro bus system.

Although these two-story rooms have had carpeting and acoustical ceiling tiles installed, the original wood paneling and details, as well as their overall spatial volume, remains intact.