Woodmen Tower - Omaha, NE
N 41° 15.469 W 095° 56.359
15T E 253750 N 4571545
Woodmen Tower is an office building at 1700 Farnam St, Omaha, NE, constructed in the late 1960s to be the home of the WoodmenLife insurance company, without whom we wouldn't have this category.
Waymark Code: WM12KMW
Location: Nebraska, United States
Date Posted: 06/11/2020
Views: 2
When the Woodmen of the World outgrew their previous space in the 1960s, they considered moving west like so many others, and it was architect Leo A. Daly, Jr. who convinced them to stay. After the building was completed, it gave Omaha a symbol for its skyline, and helped to revitalize a declining downtown area. It also surpassed the Nebraska state capitol building as the tallest building in Nebraska, a position it held until the nearby First National Bank Tower was completed in 2002.
Emporis notes that Woodmen Tower was begun in 1966 and opened on April 4, 1969, listing the building's height as 145.70 meters, a hair over 478 feet. Besides the office space, the building has covered parking, a cafeteria, a barber shop, a fitness center, on-site property management and 'round the clock security, storage, and state-of-the-art conference rooms available to accommodate 120-240 attendees. WoodmenLife are the primary tenant here, but they do lease out space to others, including law firms, Arthur Andersen, U.S. Bank, and Woodmen Federal Credit Union. It's not just people who work here, either: Woodmen Tower is the home of a good number of peregrine falcons who live at the top of the building, raising families up high.
Woodmen Tower was featured in 2002's "About Schmidt", with Jack Nicholson as a WoodmenLife employee, and it was once used for a rappelling function by the Boy Scouts of America. In early June 2020, plans were revealed to change "Woodmen" at the top of the building to "WoodmenLife" after fifty-one years.