It already has its own Wikipedia page, for goodness sakes.
If all plans are put in motion, the latest Big Thing to hit the Permian Basin will be the 58-story Energy Tower now slated for downtown Midland.
Midland-based developer Energy Related Properties will build its high rise in the heart of downtown Midland, offering more than 990,000 square feet of office, residential living, hospitality, retail and entertainment space.
A vertically integrated, mixed-use structure composed of glass, steel, vertical gardens, reflecting pools and a public plaza, Energy Tower at City Center will stand as the state’s sixth-tallest building and a monument to Midland as the “Oil Capital of America” when it opens in 2015, per its developers.
Joining Energy Related Properties as developer is Wexford Capital LP. Energy Related Properties, a Midland-based real estate investment and management firm that develops, owns, and operates commercial properties in Midland and other communities in which the energy industry is key to economic vitality. Wexford Capital LP, an SEC registered multi-billion global investment advisor formed in 1994, currently owns a diversified portfolio of real estate including the Midland office properties of Fasken Center and Western National Bank Building, both owned in partnership with ERP.
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A Tale of Two Cities
Planned to top out at 870 feet, Midland’s Energy Tower will surpass Oklahoma City’s Devon Tower by 20 feet. The two projects pose some fascinating comparisons. Oklahoma City’s skyscraper climbed more than 300 feet beyond anything else in Oklahoma City, immediately becoming the town’s signature building and its most prestigious address. Devon Energy, a company with strong interests in the Permian Basin, started its tower in 2009 and finished it only early this year. It has transformed the city’s downtown.
Midland’s tower will even more emphatically impact the skyline of the Tall City. Where Oklahoma City’s tower is half-again as tall as its surrounding high rises, Midland’s Energy Tower will be twice as tall as anything around it. Energy Tower is to have 58 stories. Devon Tower has 52.
Oklahoma City and Midland/Odessa bear some striking similarities where their oil and gas contingents are concerned, as well. Oklahoma City is home to Chesapeake, Continental (biggest player in the Bakken), and Sandridge, as well as Devon. Midland/Odessa has more oil companies and a larger overall position in oil and gas, but few cities other than Houston could bear such striking parallels, as does Oklahoma City, to the twin capitals of the Permian Basin.