Tower Petroleum Building
One of the few Zig-Zag Moderne skyscrapers surviving in downtown Dallas, this 23-floor limestone tower on Elm Street was designed by Mark Lemmon in 1931 and has housed everyone from the FBI to luxury hotel guests.
At a glance
The Tower Petroleum Building rises 315 feet above Elm Street in the heart of downtown Dallas’s historic City Center District, its limestone facade and green spandrel panels defining one of the purest surviving examples of Zig-Zag Moderne styling in the city. Designed by architect Mark Lemmon and opened in 1931, it is a contributing property in both the Dallas Downtown Historic District and the Harwood Street Historic District. After nearly ninety years as an office building — including a stint as an FBI field office — it reopened in 2022 as the Renaissance Saint Elm Dallas Downtown Hotel following a $52 million renovation.
Key facts
- Opened: 1931
- Style: Zig-Zag Moderne (Art Deco)
- Height: 315 feet; 23 floors
- Architect: Mark Lemmon
- Cladding: Limestone with green spandrel panels
- Address: 1907 Elm St., Dallas, Texas
- NRHP: Contributing property, Dallas Downtown Historic District (August 11, 2006)
- Dallas Landmark Historic District: February 28, 1990
History
The Tower Petroleum Building was completed in 1931, during the brief window when Art Deco skyscraper construction in American cities overlapped with the onset of the Great Depression — a period in which developers who had committed to projects in the late 1920s completed them even as the economic landscape around them contracted. The building sits in what was once Theater Row, the entertainment district along Elm Street; the adjacent Majestic Theatre, now the only surviving movie palace on the block, was its commercial neighbor.
The lobby originally connected to the Tower Theater behind the building — patrons could enter the theater through the office building’s ground floor, an arrangement that tied commercial and entertainment uses together in a single block. In 1951, the Corrigan Tower was constructed over and around the Tower Theater, absorbing it into the block’s architectural history. The Federal Bureau of Investigation maintained a field office on the 12th floor from 1937 to 1943.
In June 2007 the Dallas City Council approved a $15 million redevelopment plan; the eventual renovation cost reached $52 million, and the building reopened in February 2022 as the Renaissance Saint Elm Dallas Downtown Hotel, a 177-room luxury property operated under the Marriott brand.
What you see
The building’s limestone facade is articulated in the Zig-Zag Moderne manner: vertical emphasis, geometric ornament, and a setback profile — specifically, a three-story setback at the 19th floor and a further two-story setback at the 22nd floor, on three sides of the building. This stepped crown gives the tower a distinctive silhouette on the Dallas skyline, where most of its contemporaries were demolished or comprehensively reclad in the postwar decades. The green spandrel panels between the windows are an unusual color choice that reinforces the building’s visual identity from a distance.
The Zig-Zag Moderne variant of Art Deco is characterized by angular, lightning-bolt patterns and geometric stepping that read as energetic and forward-looking — a visual language derived from Aztec and Mayan motifs filtered through the 1925 Paris Exposition that introduced “Art Deco” to international attention. The Tower Petroleum Building is noted in the city’s architectural literature as one of the few remaining examples of this sub-style in downtown Dallas.
Practical information
- Current use: Renaissance Saint Elm Dallas Downtown Hotel (177 rooms)
- Access: Hotel lobby open to guests and the public
- Best time to visit: The Elm Street facade is best photographed in the morning; the geometric crown reads well at dusk
- Nearby parking: Multiple garages in the City Center District
- Time needed: 20–30 minutes for exterior and hotel lobby
Getting there
The building stands at 1907 Elm Street in the City Center District of downtown Dallas. Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport is approximately 20 miles northwest; Dallas Love Field is 8 miles northwest. The DART light rail system connects DFW Airport and Love Field to downtown Dallas; the West End and Akard stations are the closest to Elm Street. The Majestic Theatre is next door.
Nearby
- Majestic Theatre (1921) — the last surviving movie palace on Theater Row, directly adjacent
- Perot Museum of Nature and Science — major cultural institution in Victory Park, one mile north
- Dealey Plaza and the Sixth Floor Museum — JFK assassination site, five blocks west
- Dallas Arts District — Meyerson Symphony Center, DMA, AT&T Performing Arts Center, one mile east
Sources
- Wikipedia: Tower Petroleum Building
- National Register of Historic Places — contributing property, Dallas Downtown Historic District, refnum 04000894 (August 11, 2006)
- Dallas Landmark Historic District designation — Harwood Historic District, Ordinance 30812 (1990/2018)
- Dallas Architecture Info — Tower Petroleum Building
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