Wanna buy a tower?

Got a couple hundred million bucks burning a hole in your asset portfolio? If so, you can purchase a Houston architectural icon.

The owner of Williams Tower, the 65-story skyscraper that dominates the Galleria-area skyline, has put the architectural icon on the market.

In a deal that industry experts said could fetch $500 million, the offer includes the 1.5 million-square-foot office building, its 10-level parking garage, an interest in the adjacent Waterwall Park and a 2.3-acre undeveloped parcel at 3009 Post Oak Blvd.

The tower is 91 percent leased and home to such companies as Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Corp., an affiliate of the Williams Cos., Wachovia, Citicorp North America, Hines and Rowan Cos.

[...]

The glass-clad building, which many still refer to by its former name -- Transco Tower -- was designed by the renowned architectural team of Philip Johnson and John Burgee.

The architects modeled it on the setback Art Deco towers of the late 1920s, according to the Houston Architectural Guide.

The building is topped with a searchlight that rotates at night.

It'll always be the Transco Tower to me, in the same way that the megachurch in the Greenway Plaza area will always be the Summit, and the airport north of the city will always be Intercontinental. If nothing else, I suppose we can all feel assured that whoever buys the Tower is unlikely to tear it down and replace it with a Barnes & Noble. Well, mostly assured, anyway.

Posted by Charles Kuffner on December 11, 2007 to Elsewhere in Houston