The Scanlan Building is a building in
Downtown Houston.
History
The building was first envisioned by
Thomas Howe Scanlan, two-time mayor of Houston, to be built on the property he owned at Main and Preston streets. After his death in 1906, his seven daughters built the building as a memorial to him. Approximately 85 feet by 101 feet, the building was among the first in Houston to use a fireproof steel skeleton.
The Scanlan Building, located at 405 Main Street in
Houston
Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 in ...
,
Texas
Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...
, is an eleven-story, 76,403sq.ft building completed in 1909. Built on the site of the first official home of the president of the Republic of Texas, it was the first building of its size and type to be designed by a major national architect to be built in Houston, and set the style for future construction in the area. It is the only known office building in Houston which was designed by
D.H. Burnham & Company of Chicago. The building was the first to be built higher than ten stories, breaking the limit preferred by Houston developer
Jesse H. Jones
Jesse Holman Jones (April 5, 1874June 1, 1956) was an American Democratic politician and entrepreneur from Houston, Texas. Jones managed a Tennessee tobacco factory at age fourteen, and at nineteen, he was put in charge of his uncle's lumbery ...
.
D. H. Burham & Company started work on the Scanlan Building just after the
Columbian Exhibition of 1893
Columbian is the adjective form of Columbia. It may refer to:
Buildings
* The Columbian Theatre, a music hall in northeastern Kansas
* The Columbian (Chicago), a building in Illinois
Published works
* ''The Columbian'', a daily newspaper pub ...
. The steel-frame building was built in the Chicago style, with an L-shaped inner structure, permitting ventilation to the interior of the building. Facial details were restricted to the street sides of the building. Above the ground floor, all floors had an identical plan, with halls with offices on both sides, and one outer executive suite, including an interior office separated from the corridor by a receptionist office.
It was listed on 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 ...
on May 23, 1980.
Current use
Workspace provider
Novel Coworking
Expansive, formerly Novel Coworking, is an American co-working and office rental company. Its main clientele are small businesses, such as entrepreneurs and satellite office teams, needing flexible office space.
Background
Expansive was found ...
purchased the Scanlan Building in June 2014 and renovated the building's interior to provide private offices and co-working space for entrepreneurs and small businesses that need flexible, short-term workspace.
As of February 2024, the owners, Level One, a subsidiary of Expansive (a renaming of Novel), defaulted on its loan due in November 2023. The Scanlan Building was scheduled for foreclosure auction in March 2024.
See also
*
National Register of Historic Places listings in Harris County, Texas
References
Bibliography
*
External links
*
{{Portal bar, Architecture, National Register of Historic Places, Texas
1909 establishments in Texas
Buildings and structures completed in 1909
Buildings and structures in Houston
Chicago school architecture in Texas
National Register of Historic Places in Houston
Office buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Texas