Downtown South of Third: Two Postwar Skyscrapers

Downtown south of Third saw no new high rise construction until the late 1960s, when the Grant-Deneau Tower was built, followed in the late 1980s/early 1990s by 1 Arcade Centre. Both of these buildings had associated parking garage, and 1 Arcade Centre had a low-rise annex designed as a shopping arcade (which was, of course, never fully leased).



The Grant-Deneau Tower was built by an architect-developer, sort of like a local John Portman. It opened sometime between 1967 and 1970. The first snapshot here, from 1970, shows the bottom floors vacant, so perhaps it was still leasing (or had just lost a large tenant). From 1975 through 1990 this was a fairly well-occupied building. After 1990 occupancy drops and multiple floors apparently go unleased.

The name of the building changes, to0. By 1975 this is the Miami Valley Tower and in the 2000s the name changes again to 40 West Fourth. Perhaps as a reflection of changing economic fortunes of the building.


This tower was to be one of two twin towers, seperated by an low rise annex. Only one tower was built, and it was mostly leased by law offices, and fairly large ones, taking up entire floors.
The most recent city directories don't list vacanct suites, but the room numbers indicate there are multiple empty floors in this building, too, even if it is the newest speculative office skyscraper downtown. The building first appears in the 1995 snapshot, indicating it opened between 1990 and 1995.





Taking a look at cumulative occupancy, adding buildings together by year, for 1965-2005, one gets the full picture of skyscraper occupancy downtown south of Third. in the late postwar era.



Based on the directory listins (which become somewhat questionable starting in 2000) occupancy has entered an era of slow decline after dramatic drops in the 1970s and 1980s (though for awhile it looked like there might have been some stabilization in the 200-150 occupant range after 1980).