The Nissen Building is a 283 ft (86 m) 18-story

skyscraper A skyscraper is a tall continuously habitable building having multiple floors. Modern sources currently define skyscrapers as being at least or in height, though there is no universally accepted definition. Skyscrapers are very tall high-ris ...

Winston-Salem Winston-Salem is a city and the county seat of Forsyth County, North Carolina, United States. In the 2020 census, the population was 249,545, making it the second-largest municipality in the Piedmont Triad region, the 5th most populous city in N ...

Forsyth County, North Carolina Forsyth County is located in the northwest Piedmont of the U.S. state of North Carolina. As of the 2020 census, the population was 382,590, making it the fourth-most populous county in North Carolina. Its county seat is Winston-Salem. Forsyth ...

, built in 1927. It was the largest building in the city, succeeding the Hotel Robert E. Lee, and the tallest building in

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...

from 1927 to 1929, when it was succeeded by the

Reynolds Building The Reynolds Building is a Art Deco skyscraper at 51 E. 4th Street in Winston-Salem, Forsyth County, North Carolina with of space. It was completed in 1929 and has 21 floors. For much of its history the building served as headquarters for R. J. ...

; all three buildings were in Winston-Salem. The Nissen Building was named to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

March 17, 1983, with a boundary increase in 2004 to include a one-story addition built in 1969. With the

spire A spire is a tall, slender, pointed structure on top of a roof of a building or tower, especially at the summit of church steeples. A spire may have a square, circular, or polygonal plan, with a roughly conical or pyramidal shape. Spires are ...

on top, its height is 102.1m. It has a

steel frame Steel frame is a building technique with a "skeleton frame" of vertical steel columns and horizontal I-beams, constructed in a rectangular grid to support the floors, roof and walls of a building which are all attached to the frame. The developm ...

, with buff brick and pre-cast

concrete Concrete is a composite material composed of fine and coarse aggregate bonded together with a fluid cement (cement paste) that hardens (cures) over time. Concrete is the second-most-used substance in the world after water, and is the most wi ...

for the exterior, along with details in

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies undergro ...

marble Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or Dolomite (mineral), dolomite. Marble is typically not Foliation (geology), foliated (layered), although there are exceptions. In geology, the ...

and

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...

History

W.M. Nissen and new leasee Coach Kolstad, the owner of

Nissen Wagon Works Nissen may refer to: * Nissen (surname) * Saint Nissen, a 5th century Irish abbot * a creature in Norse mythology, see Tomte * a Nissen hut, a building shaped like a tube cut in half along the middle and made from corrugated iron sheets * the Ni ...

, built the Nissen Building on the site of a former

YMCA YMCA, sometimes regionally called the Y, is a worldwide youth organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, with more than 64 million beneficiaries in 120 countries. It was founded on 6 June 1844 by George Williams in London, originally ...

between 1926 and 1927.

William Lee Stoddart William Lee Stoddart (1868–1940) was an architect who designed urban hotels in the Eastern United States. Although he was born in Tenafly, New Jersey, most of his commissions were in the South. He maintained offices in Atlanta and New York C ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, known for the

Battery Park Hotel The Battery Park Hotel is the name given to two hotels in Asheville, North Carolina. The one standing today is 14 stories tall and was built in 1924 by Edwin W. Grove, during a time of increased tourism in the North Carolina mountains. It replaced ...

Asheville, North Carolina Asheville ( ) is a city in, and the county seat of, Buncombe County, North Carolina. Located at the confluence of the French Broad and Swannanoa rivers, it is the largest city in Western North Carolina, and the state's 11th-most populous cit ...

, was the architect. The building opened with a Bob-a-Link

miniature golf Miniature golf, also known as minigolf, mini-putt, crazy golf, or putt-putt, is an offshoot of the sport of golf focusing solely on the putting aspect of its parent game. The aim of the game is to score the lowest number of points. It is played ...

course in the basement. The first tenants included the Civil Service Administration,

Veterans Administration The United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is a Cabinet-level executive branch department of the federal government charged with providing life-long healthcare services to eligible military veterans at the 170 VA medical centers and ...

and the Office of Flying Safety. In 1931 the street level shops included The Vogue clothing shop, the Bland Piano Company, Gladys' Lingerie Shop, the Belcher-Forlaw Shoe Company and Bobbitt's Nissen Drug. William and Ida Nissen lived on the 18th floor until 1954. The

United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal ...

later became a major tenant. The Nissen Building was the first

air-conditioned Air conditioning, often abbreviated as A/C or AC, is the process of removing heat from an enclosed space to achieve a more comfortable interior environment (sometimes referred to as 'comfort cooling') and in some cases also strictly controlling ...

building in the

Southeast The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each sepa ...

. In May 1999,

BB&T BB&T Corporation (previously known as the Branch Banking and Trust Company) was one of the largest banking and financial services firms in the United States, based in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. In 2019, BB&T announced its intentions to merge ...

bought what was then called the

First Union First Union Corporation was a bank holding company that provided commercial and retail banking services in eleven states in the eastern U.S. First Union also provided various other financial services, including mortgage banking, credit card, inv ...

Building for $2.5 million from Aon Consulting Inc., which moved about 400 employees to University Corporate Center. BB&T planned to be the primary tenant by 2003, but the bank instead sold the building for $2 million in August 2000 to Prime Residential LLC of

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

, which planned to convert the building to 132 apartments at a cost of $26 million. In 2005, the building was in the process of being converted into 145 luxury apartments. A plan for condominiums was considered but dropped. Nissen Risk Capital LLC and HRI, using Holder Construction Co. as general contractor, began work in Summer 2004. Little Diversified Architectural Consulting and Acanthus Architecture Group provided architectural expertise. The lobby was being restored to the way it looked when the building was new, including a granite floor and brass on steel elevator doors.Kim Underwood, "Historic Nissen Building Is Taking Shape As a Comfortable Community of Apartments," ''Winston-Salem Journal'', April 22, 2005. A pool has been added to the roof. When the project was completed, the Nissen Building had of commercial space and nearly of residential space.

References

{{National Register of Historic Places in North Carolina Buildings and structures in Winston-Salem, North Carolina Skyscraper office buildings in Winston-Salem, North Carolina Skyscrapers in Winston-Salem, North Carolina Office buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in North Carolina Office buildings completed in 1927 William Lee Stoddart buildings National Register of Historic Places in Winston-Salem, North Carolina Residential skyscrapers in North Carolina