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Saturday, Jul. 25, 1998
Businessman buys Petroleum Tower
Fifth largest building in city no longer owned by Frost Bank
By GLASTON FORD
Staff WriterCorpus Christi's fifth-largest office building, the Petroleum Tower, has been bought by local businessman Chris McCann, who co-owns American Bank Plaza next door.
The purchase price was undisclosed, but the Petroleum Tower, vacant since 1992, had been listed for $1.1 million, or $3.77 per square foot. That's far below other recent sales of office buildings in Corpus Christi.
The 103,000-square-foot Park Green Atrium on the Southside sold for $4 million in March, or $38.83 per square foot.
The Petroleum Tower had been a challenge to sell because of its size and need for renovations, said commercial real estate broker Joe Adame.
McCann, a general partner in American Bank Plaza, purchased the building at 811 N. Carancahua St. from Frost Bank, said Bradley Clarke, a sales associate with Joe Adame & Associates.
McCann could not be reached for comment. His plans for the building have not been announced.
The Petroleum Tower was built in 1959 by oilman Oscar Wyatt to house Coastal States Gas Production Co., the forerunner to The Coastal Corp.
Many potential buyers have looked at the building and considered using it for apartments, office space or record storage, Adame said.
``I thought we were shooting for the Guiness Book of World Records for the most contracts that never closed,'' Adame said. ``I can show that thing with my eyes closed.''
Any buyer had to consider the cost of the building, cost of improvements and potential earnings from the new development, he said.
The sale to McCann might have been helped by cheaper financing available now and an optimism about office buildings in general, he said.
The Petroleum Tower is actually two towers, an 11-story North Tower built in 1959 and a 10-story South Tower built in 1963. It has 315,000 gross square feet and 291,600 rentable square feet.
The four largest office buildings in Corpus Christi are One Shoreline Plaza with 361,000 square feet, Mercantile Bank Tower with 320,000 square feet, Frost Bank Plaza with 315,000 square feet and NationsBank North Tower with 309,000 square feet. American Bank Plaza ranks eighth with 234,000 square feet.
The property has had about six owners in the past 20 years, many promising to make it a viable property after Coastal sold the property in 1974 when it transferred most of its employees to Houston.
Frost Bank acquired the building in 1995 when it purchased a Houston-based bank that had the building in its portfolio, said Mike Carrell, president of Frost Bank Corpus Christi region.
``I'm thrilled we don't own it anymore,'' Carrell said. ``We want to be in the banking business, not the real estate business.''
The Petroleum Tower was once the center of the legal community in Corpus Christi, said attorney Robert Anderson, whose firm was one of the last tenants to move out of the building.
All the larger firms were in that building, he said. And every evening about 5:30 p.m. everybody would go upstairs to the Petroleum Club, sit around and tell stories about practicing law, he said.
The private Petroleum Club on its top floor catered to the ``upper middle-class married couples with money to burn,'' former manager Lorraine Jollife told the Caller-Times in a 1980 interview. Performers such as the Four Freshmen, Johnnie Ray, Tiny Tim, Rudy Vallee and Ann Landers were featured at the club during its heyday, which lasted from 1959 until about 1980.
The interior of the building was still in good condition when Anderson's firm left in 1992, he said.
``I'm wishing Chris all the luck in the world,'' Anderson said. ``I really like the building. It was a landmark. I am glad to see that somebody is going to do something with it.''Post your comments about local news eventsFront Page || Main Index || News || Business || Texas || South Texas Outdoors || Birdwatching || Sports || Entertainment || Selena || Education || South Texas Attractions || World Wide Web