Apparently the city council pulled off quite a coup with the recent sale of the Mobil Building to the San Francisco restoration partnership of architect Herb McLaughlin and lawyer Ed Conner.
McLaughlin and Conner are considered by many to be the premier restoration firm in the nation. Among their credits are a shopping arcade in Cleveland and an 11-story office building – not unlike the Mobil Building – in Omaha. Their plans for the Mobil Building are, to say the least, intriguing.
For starters, the exterior of the first two floors of the structure will be returned to the original limestone slabs and carved columns. Inside, the developers will work their way up, floor by floor, renovating to the tastes of individual tenants. If all goes well, there will be expansion into the adjacent block, including a retail gallery and a bridge over Akard Street to . the Adolphus Hotel.
The future is not so certain, however, for another of the city’s fine old buildings: the Wilson Building at the corner of Ervay and Main streets. McCrory and Company, the national parent company of H. L. Green (located at street level in the building), recently purchased the structure and refused a request from the city to make it a landmark. “We are interested in the building as a building – not as a landmark,” says Joseph Banks, a lawyer with McCrory. Does McCrory have plans to move Green’s out altogether? “It is very possible we have some plans, but 1 haven’t seen them yet,” he says. “We have been doing a serious investigation of that building.”
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