The phrase "a certain building" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used when referring to a specific building that is not named or when the speaker assumes the listener knows which building is being discussed.
Example: "There is a certain building in the city that has a unique architectural style that I admire."
Alternatives: "a particular building" or "a specific building".
If you walk into a certain building, however, and knock on a particular door, things will change in an instant.
A few minutes earlier, they had analyzed a sign exhorting dog owners not to permit their animals to relieve themselves near a certain building.
Once one borrower is approved for a loan in a certain building, she added, future borrowers in that building need not clear the same hurdles.
For people who fixate on living in a certain neighborhood, on a certain block or even in a certain building, however, success only has to come once.
'(a) The respondents testified that they had a certain building under surveillance where they had information that narcotic drugs were being sold.
The wide panes of glass and low-level floors of a certain building allow Casey to make a crucial discovery about her mother.
One thing is certain: Building a quantum computer has gone from a far-off dream of a few university scientists to an immediate goal for some of the world's biggest companies.
A Glendale resident could be living in a historic property — bound by certain building regulations — and not even know it under a series of proposed municipal code changes drafted by the city's planning staff to protect historically-significant buildings.
THERE'S a noticeable lack of black widow spiders in a certain apartment building in Kips Bay.
But you need a certain size building — at least 100,000 square feet — to really make it viable, and today we just really haven't found the property at the right price.
All together, they function as a reminder that certain buildings have a very specific architectural language — meant to communicate sturdiness and monumentality in the case of these old banks — and when buildings are repurposed, this language loses its meaning.
