My quick answer is no. there are circumstances where i would allow it but only if it can be easily proven that the building steel is continuous and solidly connected to the grounding system and electrodes. 10-700 mentions in-situ electrodes and defines what that might be. In buildings where the engineering required the steel to be bonded in 2 widely seperated places (very old code for High voltage substation grounding) and was made continuous via bonding jumpers, welding, or mechanical joints proven to be electrically continuous then we might allow the column to be part of the system ground. A lot of homework to do in an old building but might be simple to establish when the power distributution is planned and the bonding and grounding is included in the inspections of the building. The long answer is maybe.
