Urbanland: Adapting an Art Deco Banking Center: The Rebirth of First National Center of Oklahoma City

For much of the 20th century, the banking hall at the First National Center in Oklahoma City served as a showpiece for the downtown financial district. The great hall, as it was known, rose nearly three stories high, with marble Corinthian columns, an ornately painted ceiling, large replicas of ancient coins inspired by King Tut’s tomb mounted above the teller cages, and four murals of Oklahoma’s history by noted painter Edgar Spier Cameron. Constructed in 1931 by First National Bank and Trust, and designed by Chicago-based architecture firm Weary and Alford, the 33-story Art Deco tower was the state’s biggest building at the time, its grandeur fueled by the oil boom in defiance of the Great Depression. Indiana limestone clad the exterior, with black granite at the base and decorative aluminum panels over entrances.

 But the oil bust of the 1980s brought the bank—once the state’s largest—to bankruptcy, precipitating decades of trouble for the signature building. It passed through the hands of a series of out-of-state owners. By 2015, it was in receivership again, with many tenants having fled. At one point, utilities cut service for nonpayment, shutting down the air conditioning system. The murals were flaking paint.

This time, a local developer decided to throw his hat into the ring. “First National is one of the most treasured buildings in our state, and it needed to be saved,” says Gary Brooks, partner of First National Center. He joined forces with Charlie Nicholas, founder and president of NE Development & Partners of Lewisville, Texas, and put in a bid for the property—the only local to do so—with a plan to adapt it to house a hotel, residences, shops, and food and beverage venues.

The team’s bid was successful, but the task ahead was complex. “The attached parking garage had been disconnected in the 1990s,” Brooks explains. “So you had a 1.1 million square-foot, old building with no parking in the middle of downtown. It had been neglected for 20 years. While everybody loved the building, the fear was that once you get into it, you’re going to find things that there’s no way to address.”

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