MIDLAND | Energy Tower at City Center | 869 FT | 53 FLOORS
 

http://imageshack.us/scaled/landing/855/energytower.jpg
Image Provided by Midland Reporter Telegram

See an animation @ http://youtu.be/H75mYDI7-lw

869FT (265M)

It will be the 5th tallest building in Texas (there are 3 in Houston and 2 in Dallas that are taller) and the 30th tallest in the US (with taller buildings in Chicago, New York City, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Seattle, and Charlotte). *Not including current proposals.

Energy Related Properties officially announced Energy Tower at City Center today during a press conference at Centennial Plaza, the future site of the proposed City Center.

The tower will be 53 stories with one underground retail floor and five basement parking floors, effectively making a total of 59 floors, according to the fact sheet given to the press.

Read more at Midland Reporter Telegram...

Here is the current Midland skyline (note the Bank of America building is currently the tallest at 332ft):

http://imageshack.us/scaled/landing/...andskyline.jpg

no way this is going to get built

Well now, this would probably be the tallest building between Houston and Los Angeles. Somewhere around 700 feet or so. It would be more than twice as tall as Midland's tallest building now, the 330 foot 24-story Bank of America Tower. It might also be taller than the Austonian in Austin, so it would probably be the tallest building in Texas outside of Houston and Dallas.

Here is the architecture firm.
http://www.edmondsinternational.com/

http://i.imgur.com/gn1GTJs.jpg
Edmonds International

Now, this is a great looking building, and would deffinently be one of the talles buildings between Chicago and LA. Hope this one moves forward

As neat a proposal as this is, can a city of this size support such a tower?

I skimmed thru the Wiki entry on Midland (FWIW) and it seems to me that it would look out of place in more than one respect.

OTOH, though, this proposal--even if it does end up being just that--demonstrates a big positive sign of this town's good health and future growth. And should that happen, other projects may come down the pipe.

I recall reading on the forum years ago that Midland did at one point have three or four towers planned during the 80s that were rumored to be 500 feet each. Midland does have an impressive skyline already for a city of its size. Midland has around 10 or so buildings over 200 feet and probably around 30 highrises. The two tallest ones are over 300 feet.

This is planned for the site of what's now the old Courthouse overlooking Centennial Plaza - which is a fairly small but nice, if not underutilized, public space. The city voted to purchase the old building this morning. It's across catty corner to the Bank of America Tower, the current tallest in town and across the street from a twin-towered Doubletree Hotel.

This report (w/video) has a few more renderings visible. Also of note, it says the building will have "Class-A" office space & "a state of the art five star hotel".

That alone tells me it will either -a- never come to fruition or -b- there will be a final version that is greatly scaled down. Given the fact that there is still an issue with vacancy in many of the buildings downtown and that the only new construction of any kind in that part of the city deals with rehab of existing smaller structures that had, themselves, been vacant for some time and a few other, older midrises have been demolished within a few blocks in recent years... yeah. Not so optimistic on this one.

This link below shows an illustration of what the tower might look like on the skyline. I doubt it is, but if that's accurate and to scale, this thing is easily going to be 700 feet. Twice the height of the Bank of America Tower would be 660 feet, and it's more than double the height.

http://www.mywesttexas.com/top_stori...=image&photo=1

Nice tower! Looks to be a "cross" between 300 N. LaSalle in Chicago and The "Bow" in Calgary, Alberta.

I've always been surprised this didn't happen with other energy companies in Midland. This has always been a question of "when" and not "if".

WOW, Impressive! However, I don't recall there being mountains in the Permian Basin :)

You've got to be kidding me. Beautiful design, totally wrong city. Love Midland/Odessa (my family has deep roots there), but this would be completely out of place. The fact that they sold the damn old courthouse (which I love) for this should be a f*ing crime.

Midland will starting looking like Oklahoma City in a few yrs.

Here is the location in downtown. The site of the old courthouse.

http://goo.gl/maps/bn3k1

Photo w/ another rendering:
http://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townn...cc2b.image.jpg

Sure, why not?

It's a nice looking tower.

It would have a huge impact on the skyline.

http://imageshack.us/scaled/landing/...dlandtower.jpg

actually, this will look MORE out of place than Devon does in OKC. At least OKC already had several 500 foot (and just under) skyscrapers before Devon Tower came along proposed at 925 (built at 850). Midland currently tops off at the mid-300, while this tower will be almost 3-times taller (and even slightly taller than OKC's Devon). Just wanted to point that out.

Nevertheless, I am happy for Midland and hope it gets built! :) Midland and OKC will be just fine, nothing wrong with raising the bar.

What's more likely, this new tower or mountains growing in the Permian Basin?

It's Texas. I wouldn't count anything out.