Can you name the current tallest building in the United States without looking it up?
rabbit75_ist
A lot of us have probably had a vague sort of notion about the tallest buildings. For something like forty years the Empire State Building was the tallest not only in the U.S. but in the entire world. The ESB barely makes the top ten in the United States now. Then, for a while it was the Sears Tower in Chicago (now #3 and called the Willis Tower).
The current U.S. record holder is One World Trade at 1,776 feet.
Now, a very unexpected city has plans to beat that by over 100 feet. It’s not New York or Chicago. It’s not even one of the fifty largest cities in the U.S.
Photo by Oli Scarff/Getty Images
It’s Oklahoma City. I’ll bet you weren’t expecting that!
Currently, the Devon Energy Center at 844 feet is the tallest in OKC. But, if developers are able to get the zoning approved, a new project will be TWICE as tall as the Devon Building.
The original design was for a 134 story skyscraper in OKC’s Bricktown district. That building WOULD have been the second tallest U.S. building after One World Trade. Now, the developers are going back and asking to extend the building to over 1,900 feet which would be a new U.S. record.
The proposed building, the Dream Tower, would have about 5 million square feet of space and would house a hotel, condos, restaurants, retail space and a public observatory on the top.
Oklahoma City has 25 building that stand at least 200 feet or about 20 stories. So it’s not the dusty cattle junction that you might be picturing. However, the new building will be over a thousand feet taller than the current tallest in OKC. Take a look at this artist’s conception of what the skyline will look like.
@architects_orange
You could probably see the nighttime lights from Tulsa, maybe even from Dallas at the top of that thing! Also, it kind of looks like the world’s longest middle finger.
I approve.
