^Yes I definitely agree with you. 

 

I went out on sales calls for our business with the consultant in our area, and he was saying we were going out in the country, but we kept passing through these "small" towns like Eaton or Celina, OH and the like, and I was thinking, dang, there really isn't a whole lot of "country" here!

 

I would go on sales calls in Iowa and sometimes I would have trouble finding a gas station when I was low.  I remember I pulled off the interstate and there was a stretch of about 20 miles with no gas stations.  When I stopped at a place called Brooklyn, IA, i was driving around and stopped and talked to an old man mowing his lawn, and he said, "yeah, there used be a gas station here, but they bulldozed it 10 years ago, you got to drive to Marshalltown for that", which was another 15 minutes down the road.  Just a way different scene than in Ohio

dmerkow asked, in 2008, "Fascinating, it would interesting to hear the stories of how those got built. What was going on that people thought that those towns would benefit from that level of capital investment."

 

 

I forget when Credit Life started. For a while, they were in the Guardian Bank building on Limestone across from the Regent theater. Going way back there was a cafeteria there.

But I digress...

Later they built the building at Limestone & High on the SE corner. The place was a real boy's club - think Madmen. They were growing like crazy and when the city decided to demolish downtown, they bought a corner for their sleek black tower.

I don't know if they even moved in - the company just kinda imploded. For a while it just sat unfinished. The downtown really sucked for awhile.

Clark State took over the building at Limestone & High. I think they moved into the black building, too. The newspaper recently moved into the building.

 

I used to do business in that building all the time. It was such a dump. Very dark and depressing building. I imagine it was very nice when it was built in the late 70's early 80s but it has not been cared for very well. It is pretty dreary in there too with the way the windows were designed. Almost feels like a prison.

On 5/10/2008 at 2:28 PM, Y-CityGuy said:

 

Actually, the masonic temple is a bit deceiving. From the front it is 6 stories, but from the back, it is 7. There is a 7th floor on the back half of the building. And, yes, it does seem to be taller than most buildings with the same amount of floors.

 

Unfortunately, it appears that Zanesville's Masonic Temple was destroyed by fire last night.

Horrific......

https://www.zanesvilletimesrecorder.com/story/news/2022/01/07/business-surrounding-masonic-temple-ordered-close-friday/9128006002/

 

^Also from the Zanesville Times Recorder:

Too bad about that beauty in Zanesville.

 

I know universities are outside the scope of this thread, but Bowling Green State University just demolished the Administration Building (121ft, 10 floors).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 7, 20223 yr by westerninterloper

^ aww geez -- well we knew it was coming down and sure that breaks my heart for my lost youth, but certainly not for the crappy admin building!

 

so that leaves these as tallest in town:

 

#Building------City---Floors---Height---Year

1Wood County Courthouse---Bowling Green---3---185ft---1896

2Offenhauer Tower ---WestBowling Green---11---≈134ft---1971

3Adminstration Building --- 10---121.39ft ---1961-2021(demo)

4Offenhauer Tower ---EastBowling Green---10---≈121ft---1971

5Jerome Library ---8---115---1967

 

Also:  BG wind turbines (2002) -- The four turbines are 257 feet tall – as tall as a 30-story building. The turbines rest atop 257-foot towers. With blades that extend 132 feet from the turbine casing, each unit measures nearly 400 feet tall when the blades rotate to their highest point.

 

*edit -- fixed height info

 

the bgsu campus could sure use a bit more of height, especially now, but i guess that is not in the cards.

 

and what a shame about zanesville, that was a beauty.

 

 

Edited January 10, 20223 yr by mrnyc

not much tall in lorain -- pj's & city hall -- probably smokestacks were taller than buildings:

 

#Building---Floors---Height---Year

1Lakeview Plaza---12---120ft---1970

2City Hall ---7---105ft---1973

3JFK Plaza --- 10---100ft ---1966

 

via emporis -- lovely aren't they? 🥺

lakeview plaza

 

city hall

 

jfk plaza

Aside from church steeples and the dome of the Lake County courthouse, In order to do Painesville's "skyscrapers" I'm going to have to violate the 7-floor rule so I hope that's okay (isn't there a special dispensation for small towns?😧). Sadly the only building that's above that height appears to be the Lake County jail (now apparently outmoded and in need of replacement), shown in first photo, and I don't know the height in feet of any of these structures, but I think at least a couple must be over 100 ft., no? (probably wrong)

 

 

the newly built Lake County administration building, and on right, the old Cleveland Trust building (originally Painesville National Bank, 1929, now also county admin), separate photo under it.

 

 

dramatic evening view! seriously, I do like the "LAKE" sign--

 

the old Chase Bank, which was originally Lake County Nat'l Bank (and even something else in between), soon to be Lake Erie College dorms--

 

and also two Lake County Housing Authority projects--the first one the grandly named Washington Square 🙄; and second, Jackson Towers for the elderly--

 

Not sure if this counts as a "tower", but East Liverpool finally got around to demolishing the Golden Star Dairy Building on Weber Way which had been abandoned for decades. It was a pretty cool old building and at 8 stories, it was pretty tall for East Liverpool. Obviously it was beyond saving, but it always held a special place in my heart because it's the first building you see when entering East Liverpool to go between my two hometowns, Youngstown and Toronto, OH. It was a very noticeable landmark and East Liverpool looks quite different without it. Oh, and apparently my own grandma was the one that first noticed and reported the fire that ravaged the building decades ago, but I have no way of empirically proving this claim 😁 Regretfully I never got a chance to take pictures of it before it got demolished. 

 

 

The last few days on this thread have been utterly depressing 😢

This will always be Ohio's premier small city tower. Unrivaled and unmatched.

 

Edited January 12, 20223 yr by cbussoccer
spelling

I'm counting those basket handles as spires. 

Since you guys want some good news about small town Ohio towers: The Huntington Bank Building in Steubenville (10 stories tall) has been undergoing a slow renovation project and the developer thankfully removed the god-awful metal awning that was added at some point during the craze of "modernizing" old buildings. It needs some cleaning up of course, but the original facade has returned and it looks a million times better in my opinion!

 

Before:

 

After:

That IS great news!

11 hours ago, X said:

I'm counting those basket handles as spires. 

 

Nearly spit out my coffee this morning! 🤣

 

8 hours ago, Dblcut3 said:

Since you guys want some good news about small town Ohio towers: The Huntington Bank Building in Steubenville (10 stories tall) has been undergoing a slow renovation project and the developer thankfully removed the god-awful metal awning that was added at some point during the craze of "modernizing" old buildings. It needs some cleaning up of course, but the original facade has returned and it looks a million times better in my opinion!

 

After:

 

Such a big improvement! Really needed to see this after the past few posts.

Darn, I had the World's Largest Block of Cheese that I was saving just for the Stubenville Huntington awning too

16 hours ago, cbussoccer said:

This will always be Ohio's premier small city tower. Unrivaled and unmatched.

 

 

 

that sad attempt to try to steal the thunder from ohio's one true basket with godzilla devlishness down there!  👹

 

 

A couple residential towers in Springfield seem to have been missed so far in this thread.

 

9-story Cole Mannor apartment tower:

 

10-story Governor's Mannor apartment tower:

lakeside ten (perch on the lake)

sheffield lake

1970

100'/11 fl

 

I only focused on downtown/office type buildings, not housing towers. So many towns are loaded with those government housing towers from the 60s and 70s. 

^When I was in college (Portsmouth) a lot of us wanted to rent in the towers that were all over town instead of the bent early-1900s trashed SFH that was also all over town but we found out that they were all for low-income seniors and people on disability/Medicaid only.

as we can see here -- government housing is the top tower height of the town or campus in some cases.

 

 

speaking of that topic -- elyria actually has a nice mix:

 

#Building------Floors---Height---Year

1Memorial Hospital---11---160ft---1964

2Justice Center ---7---140ft---2004

3Lorain National Bank Building --- 10---133ft ---1916

4Riverview Plaza---13---129ft---1970

5Huntington Bank ---9---119---1922

 

 

hospital

 

justice center

 

lorain national bank building

 

riverview plaza

 

huntington bank

The sole building referenced for Sandusky is actually the fifth tallest building in Sandusky. There are additional taller buildings of 9, 10, 11 and 12 floors, three of which are located in the downtown area.

A 10 story hotel is also planned for downtown Sandusky.

On 1/14/2022 at 10:27 AM, ink said:

I only focused on downtown/office type buildings, not housing towers. So many towns are loaded with those government housing towers from the 60s and 70s. 

So being an apartment building makes them irrelevant because . . . 

 

20 hours ago, Joe said:

So being an apartment building makes them irrelevant because . . . 

 

 

I'm not saying they are irrelevant in general, but the purpose of this thread was to highlight unique (mostly downtown) towers. That might get lost if you include all the generic housing blocks of the 60s and 70s.