One of the great downtown El Paso structures, symbolic of the city’s 1920s building boom, is now scheduled for a comprehensive renovation.
Located at 109 North Oregon Street, the One Texas Tower building was designed by the architectural firm of Barglebaugh & Whitson and measures just under 100,000 square feet.
Topping out at 15 stories, what was originally called the First Mortgage Company Building was completed in the summer of 1921 and has been listed for the last four decades on the National Register of Historic Places.
Members of the El Paso City Council have now given their approval to a series of incentives worth around $2.1 million and designed to spur the building’s renovation, transforming it into a new hotel.
Attorney and investor Jim Scherr has said that he plans to spend upwards of $18 million on the project. According to city documents, the renovation will see the creation of a lobby, dining space, offices, meeting rooms and kitchen on the building’s main floor, and upper level hotel rooms.
The structure’s elegant and popular Café Central is set to remain in place.
