Hightower Building

[Pete]

[category=]Office Buildings[/category]
[category=]Central Business District[/category]
[category=]Tall Buildings[/category]
[category=]Buildings with Retail Space[/category]

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Address: 105 N. Hudson Status: Owner: Cost: Architect: Start Date: Finish Date: 1928 Contractor: Height in Feet / Floors: 130 feet / 10 stories Sq. Feet: 108,750 Acreage: .6428 Other: 19.9% vacancy

Information & Latest News

Tenants

• Abowitz Timberlake & Dahnke Pc‎
• Advantage Paralegal‎
• Ainsworth Co‎
• Alldredge Lynn CPA‎
• Allen Brown Architects‎
• Coronado‎
• Courbois Frank‎
• Edinger Engineering Inc‎
• Gibson & Associates PLC‎
• Helm & Boone‎
• Hiersche Law Firm‎
• Hightower Properties‎
• Johnson & Biscone: Biscone Joe‎
• Johnson and Biscone‎
• Kruger Investment Co‎
• Oklahoma City Urban Renewal‎
• Rainey Ross Rice & Binns‎
• Wiggins William J‎
• Work J Kelly‎

Links

County Assessor Record
Retro Metro OKC article
Gallery

[BoulderSooner]

a cool feature from Newsok about the restaurant space in the basement "the Cellar"

In its heyday, the Cellar Restaurant was the ritziest eatery downtown, a place where the city’s most powerful each had a cubicle for their private liquor and a discreet table where deals could be done.
photo - The Cellar Restaurant was one of the city’s fanciest spots, as shown in this undated photo. Provided by Johnson Hightower
The Cellar Restaurant was one of the city’s fanciest spots, as shown in this undated photo. Provided by Johnson Hightower


It was Frank P. Johnson, onetime president of First National Bank & Trust Co., who built the Hightower Building in 1928 and opened the Cellar in the building’s basement in 1957.

Read more: http://newsok.com/cellar-restaurant-...#ixzz1uxFouQAM


http://places.newsok.com/the-cellar-...rticle/3467325
http://blog.newsok.com/okccentral/20...ower-part-one/

[Midtowner]

Growing up, my father officed in this building. First on the 3rd floor, then on the 1st. I recall they had (and maybe still do have) elevator operators.

Neat place.

[Spartan]

liquor and a discreet table where deals could be done.

Ah, that explains everything in this city's history...

[rondvu]

Sad to say the Hightower has had automatic elevators for several years. The longest elevator operator in the building was Jackie. She passed about 5 or six years ago.

[MrZ]

I drove my 88 year old grandmother downtown the other day and she recognized this building right away and recalled going up to the top as a little kid and looking out on the city. Must have been quite a view back then.

[Doug Loudenback]

For those wanting to know a lot more about the history of the Hightower, I strongly recommend these pages at Retro Metro OKC, which are complete with written and imagery history, including the excellent Cellar restaurant.

[ThePlainsman]

Crawley Petroleum Corporation has been in this building for nearly 40 years.

[UnFrSaKn]

That's funny... I was just looking at old photos of the Hightower and the intersection of Main and Hudson. Here's an old photo...


This is looking West down Main St across Hudson. The Haliburton Building was straight East from the Hightower across Hudson. It's all the Devon garage and fitness center now. The building that says Bass Furniture is the old USO club building that's still there. The buildings between the Hightower and USO club are where that Main St. parking garage will be soon. Across from all those are Carpenter Square building, Coney Island, Pizza Town, and Main Place.

View today

[Just the facts]

They should bring back that sign on the Hightower.

[Popsy]

They should bring back that sign on the Hightower.

Why do you think they should replace it? If it is important to you that it be replaced, why not call them and ask if they would mind if you replaced it at your expense? If it is not that important to you, why even bring it up in the first place?

[Just the facts]

Popsy - that is your best post in at least 3 years.

[Praedura]

They should bring back that sign on the Hightower.

Definitely! Would look great back on there.

[Jeepnokc]

Does anyone have a clue how the Hightower building managed to get reserved parking on a public street? The west side of Hudson from Park Ave to several spots just south of Main in front of the Old Carpenter Square has street signs saying "Reserved for Hightower" They even have little orange cones put out to reserve the spots when they aren't being parked in.

Just curious how they managed this on a public street.

[Pete]

I suspect this has to do with the parking garage under construction directly west of the Hightower, as that has temporarily taken spaces they had been using.

I bet the reserved spaces will be released once the new garage opens.

[Jeepnokc]

I suspect this has to do with the parking garage under construction directly west of the Hightower, as that has temporarily taken spaces they had been using.

I bet the reserved spaces will be released once the new garage opens.

That would make sense. Surprised that it extends down into the next block. Fortunately, now that all the constructions workers for Devon are gone, the parking on Hudson has become much easier and available in this area. Most of the people parking in this area appear to be going to the City building for permits (They are carrying plans or have signs on their trucks indicating they are trades related)

[Pete]

There are also some City offices in the Hightower.

[Steve]

The parking spaces were part of the deal made to incorporate the surface parking lot owned by Johnson Hightower into the garage. The deal works like this: the Hightowers provided their lot to the city (it adjoined the city's surface parking lot) for the garage to take up the entire surface parking area between the city's financial building and the Hightower building. In exchange, the Hightower gets a certain number of spaces reserved in the new garage. To address the hardship of the Hightower tenants losing their parking all together during construction, the city provided them with reserved parking spaces. It's an unusual set-up, but I think most people can understand why and how this was done. The curbside spaces will revert back to public parking once the garage is opened next year. This is the sort of effort we're seeing behind the scenes with The Alliance for Economic Development of Oklahoma City - the same organization that has also continued to pursue housing or offices atop the garage (don't count out the possibility that a deal can still be done even yet....)

[Jeepnokc]

Makes sense and sounds like a reasonable accommodation.

[traxx]

That's funny... I was just looking at old photos of the Hightower and the intersection of Main and Hudson. Here's an old photo...


This is looking West down Main St across Hudson. The Haliburton Building was straight East from the Hightower across Hudson. It's all the Devon garage and fitness center now. The building that says Bass Furniture is the old USO club building that's still there. The buildings between the Hightower and USO club are where that Main St. parking garage will be soon. Across from all those are Carpenter Square building, Coney Island, Pizza Town, and Main Place.

View today

Love these old pics with all the hustle and bustle downtown.

[UnFrSaKn]

The building that says Bass Furniture is still there. The old USO Club Building. The area between this building and the Hightower is where the new parking garage is going up. View today

[sroberts24]

I get a sick feeling when I see these old photos of density downtown.... we could have a very special downtown.

[HangryHippo]

I get a sick feeling when I see these old photos of density downtown.... we could have a very special downtown.

Agreed 100%. Just nauseating to think about what we could have been working with now.

[UnFrSaKn]

Oh yeah, the fancy awning in the bottom left corner used to be over the entrance of the city building on Main (the street in the photo)

[HangryHippo]

The old USO building is just absolutely hideous with that light blue stucco (?) exterior.