At 555 feet 5 inches, the 47-story LeVeque Tower anchors Downtown Columbus above you. At 555 feet 5 inches it was the city’s tallest building from its completion in 1927 to 1974 and remains the second-tallest today. Designed by C. Howard Crane, this 353,768-square-foot Art Deco tower opened as the American Insurance Union Citadel and was, at the time, the fifth tallest building in the world.
Built at a cost of $8.7 million, the tower was planned with 600 hotel rooms split into two wings and even includes an attached performance venue, the Palace Theatre. Notice the ornate ornamentation and the terracotta facade that give the tower its distinctive, sculpted presence on the skyline. Its office space had mixed success attracting tenants early on, later housing a number of state agencies and law firms as Downtown development picked up beginning in the 1960s.
The building carried the name Lincoln-LeVeque Tower after 1946 and later became simply the LeVeque Tower in 1977. Notice the terracotta facade and ornamentation above, and the Palace Theatre tucked at the tower's base below.