Tower Life Building

	Smith-Young Tower
	U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Nearest city	San Antonio, Texas
Coordinates	29°25′22″N 98°29′29″W / 29.42278°N 98.49139°W
Built	1927-1929
NRHP reference No.	91001682
Added to NRHP	November 13, 1991

Tower Life Building
Tower Life Building
	The Tower Life Building, formerly the Smith-Young Tower, as seen during night in December of 2014.
Former names	Smith-Young Tower (1929-1943), Transit Tower (1943-1990)
General information
Type	Office building
Architectural style	Late Gothic Revival
Address	310 S St Mary's St, San Antonio, TX
Town or city	Downtown San Antonio, Texas
Country	United States
Groundbreaking	1927
Completed	May, 1929
Opened	June 1st, 1929
Renovated	2009-2010, 2024-2026 (planned)
Height	404 feet (123 m)
Technical details
Floor count	31
Design and construction
Architect(s)	Atlee Bernard Ayres and Robert M. Ayres
Architecture firm	Ayres-Ayres

The Smith-Young Tower (known later on as the Transit Tower from 1943-1990 and now known officially as the Tower Life Building since 1990) is a 31-story building and a historical landmark in Downtown San Antonio, Texas. It is located directly near the San Antonio Riverwalk and former Plaza Hotel, which is now known as the Granada Apartments since 1966.

Designed in the Late Gothic Revival Style by local architectural firm Ayres & Ayres, Atlee Bernard Myles & Robert M. Ayres, the Smith-Young Tower contains lots of neo-gothic brick and a Ludowici green terra-cotta capped tower, even complete with numerous amounts gargoyles and grotesques all over the exterior. The overall shape of the tower is uniquely eight-sided, and has remained the tallest building in the United States with that many sides since its completion. As of 2023, the former Smith-Young Tower is currently the 5th tallest habitable structure and 4th tallest building in San Antonio.

Architectural characteristics

Exterior

The exterior walls are brick with terracotta and black granite ornamentation, and the interior embellishments, particularly in the first floor lobby, also reflect Late Gothic Revival design. The Smith-Young Tower is one block east of the Bexar County Courthouse at the southernmost edge of San Antonio's central business district. It is bounded by Villita Street to the south, St.Mary's Street to the west, the San Antonio River to the north, and an adjoining parking garage to the east, while the building faces southwest onto the intersection of Villita and St.Mary's streets.

The building, bearing masterful treatment of form, scale and ornamentation, meets Criterion C in the area of Architecture as one of the best illustrations of Late Gothic Revival commercial design in the state and as the work of local master architects Atlee B. and Robert M. Ayres.

The building's form is that of a 3-part vertical block, as its 6-story base structure is of reinforced concrete and has an unusual 4-sided plan with no right angles. The street level of the base is heavily decorated,and above the 6-foot base course of black granite, the first 2-stories are faced with terra cotta, and the remaining upper stories are tan brick. The main southwest entrance has two pairs of double doors and an immense, segmentally arched transom bears massive bronze grills. The west and north elevations have segmentally arched plate glass display windows with copper ornamented transom bars and terra cotta sills on the 1st level. The south elevation also has segmentally arched plate glass windows, but they are set in bronze. Both the south and west elevations have copper canopies. On the west, north, and east elevations, 2nd level windows are grouped in threes and are heavily ornamented with terra cotta tracery. On The upper four levels of the base these elevations have aluminum sash windows, also grouped in threes, which replaced the original steel sash windows in 1961. The east elevation is adjoined to a parking garage and bears no fenestration or ornamentation. The base is set off from the shaft at the 6th floor with terracotta tracery that acts as a parapet. The base beyond the tower support has a flat roof.

The 14-story midsection shaft is a steel frame octagonal plan, and all eight sides of the shaft echo the rhythm of fenestration with aluminum sash windows grouped in threes separated by vertical framing members. Protected with a balustrade of terra cotta tracery, an observation deck at the 7th floor faces north and has red promenade tile flooring. Terra cotta decorates the 19th and 20th floors, while terra cotta tracery that acts as a parapet separates the shaft from the set-back "capital."

The 11-story "capital" isa series of three steel frame octagons that recess at the 20th, 25th, and 29th floors. Each section repeats the established fenestration pattern. Terra cotta embellishes the 26th and 29th floors with gargoyles accenting each of the eight corners, and the conical roof is covered with green clay tile and has gable dormers. Above the roof is square copper-covered lantern and a large antenna, and until 1947, an 80-foot flag pole had been perched atop the lantern, which since 2010, has been restored and placed back atop the lantern.

Interior lobby

The interior public spaces of the Smith-Young Tower are elaborately decorated with Gothic Revival detailing. The main lobby, accessed through the southwest-facing entrance, has marble flooring, marble wainscoting, and a 2- story-tall vaulted ceiling of gold-finished and terra cotta panels with Gothic characteristics. Six elevators in the lobby and three along the north wall feature cast bronze doors with green-colored Tiffany glass, and woodwork in the lobby is of Circassian walnut.

Early history

Planning and background

In 1923 the Smith Brothers Properties Company was organized in San Antonio to develop Bowen's Island, a large conceptual development that would consist of many skyscrapers and many other upscale properties. Literature and correspondence the company produced suggest that the developers envisioned Bowen's Island as a multiple use complex similar to Rockefeller Center in New York, a project that was also in the conceptual stage. To that end the company constructed several buildings including the Ormsby Chevrolet Company Showroom, Allen Auto Electric Company and the Montgomery Ward & Company Department Store, all three of which have since been demolished, two garages, A.B. Frank Company Wholesale and Drygoods Building, now the City Public Service Building, the Plaza Hotel and Garage, now the Granada Apartments, and the Federal Reserve Bank Building, now the Mexican Consulate.

Construction and completion

Architects Atlee B. Ayres & Robert M. Ayres had already designed all of the major buildings the Smith Brothers Properties Company had erected on Bowen's Island. Again Smith Brothers turned to San Antonio's most prominent architectural firm to design a monumental tower of noble scale and form. Preliminary drawings were underway by December of 1927, with 29-year-old Robert Ayres serving as chief designer. Joseph Dodge, a draftsman with the architects' office, was also assigned to the project and worked especially close with the general contractors, McKenzie Construction Company, a firm that had worked on other Bowen's Island buildings as well as the Olmos Dam on the San Antonio River north of the city.

The building opened in June of 1929 and was fittingly named the Smith-Young Tower, albeit during the height of the financial downtown following the Wall Street Crash, which had ultimately led to the development ultimately being scrapped after the Smith-Young Tower was completed, serving as a reminder of the exuberant, optimistic expectations that characterized urban landscapes prior to the Great Depression. Regardless, when the building was completed, it officially surpassed the Milam Building, becoming San Antonio’s tallest building and structure, and notably, its lowest 6-levels contained the city’s first Sears, Roebuck & Co. store when it first opened. The store was open for exactly 10 years, boasting large display windows along St. Mary's and Villita streets, ornamental doorways and monumental fronts offered sensational distraction and enticed the attention of consumers. Meanwhile, the upper stories were rented as office space, housing prominent local professionals and businesses including attorney J.H. Groce, architects Ralph Cameron, George Willis, Ayres and Ayres, and the Humble Oil Company. To best accommodate tenants the building had numerous "modern" amenities like nine Otis elevators, steel sash windows, ceiling fans, water fountains and bathrooms on each floor, ice water connections in each office, a penthouse at the 7th floor, a ladies' lounge at the 18th floor, an underground pneumatic tube system that linked to the Bexar County Courthouse, and a tunnel connecting to the adjacent Plaza Hotel.

Later history

20th Century

Sometime in the 1940s the building was renamed to the Transit Tower for the San Antonio Transit Company, which the Smith Brothers purchased in 1943, with the original 80-foot flagpole being removed by 1947, and a few years later, in 1953, the tall television transmission antenna tower was added to the top of the lantern, officially replacing the original flagpole. Sometime in 1958, Betty Fox jumped rope, danced, and did splits and shoulder lifts on a narrow ledge outside the 22nd floor of the Transit Tower in a campaign to raise money for San Antonio's hospital building fund.

In April of 1968, for the first time in its history, the Transit Tower was surpassed as the tallest structure in San Antonio when the Tower of the Americas was completed for HemisFair ‘68, but continued to remain the tallest building in the city until 1988, when the 38-floor Marriott Rivercenter hotel was completed, and today, the hotel has remained the tallest in the city.

Sometime in 1990, the Tower Life Insurance Company acquired the Transit Tower, officially renaming it again, this time, to the Tower Life Building. In November of 1991, the Towner Life Building was rightfully listed on the National Register of Historic Places due to its architecture characteristics and place in San Antonio’s history of skyscrapers.

21st Century

2008, before renovation, still donning the antenna.

2014, four years after the renovation, restored to original appearance with flagpole.

Eventually, around 2009, Tower Life devised plans to restore the top of the tower and its lantern to its former glory. The restorations officially began in September of that year, involving the complete removal of the antenna that had been placed there by the Transit Company, and rebuilding the lantern’s original roof. Soon, a flagpole similar to the one that it was first completed with was hoisted up to the lantern, officially restoring the building to its original exterior appearance by 2010.

In May of 2022 San Antonio businessman Red McCombs and real estate investors Jon Wiegand and Ed Cross officially acquired the Tower Life Building, and later that August, they announced their plans to convert much of the vacant office space into mixed-use apartments and housing, many of which will be affordable as part of a deal struck with Bexar County that December. The investment group plans to revive life within the building with 234 new residences and a restaurant on the ground level, with the conversion set to begin sometime in 2024, with the first apartments set to go on the market by 2026.

Appearances in media

The Smith-Young tower has occasionally been featured or appeared in various forms of media, one of the most notable being in the 1984 film, Cloak & Dagger, where it is featured in the opening panning scenes in the center of San Antonio.

The second most notable is in the History Channel what-if series, Life After People, where 50 years after people, repeated rains have spawned cycles of flooding along the San Antonio RiverWalk, softening the building’s foundations and making it sink. After the flooding, waterlogged foundations leave the buildings tilting at odd angles, including the Smith-Young Tower, as silt and sand inundate the area. Steven S. Ross calls it death by inches since it happens slowly and insidiously, and he continues that the river itself, although not flowing very fast, would flood repeatedly which brings a lot of silt and sand to cover part of the area causing the buildings to sink into it unevenly and settle. Eventually, the lean is too much for the Smith-Young Tower as gravity takes over, which then collapses and falls into the river it once overlooked, toward the San Antonio RiverWalk on the ground.

Timeline of the Singer Building’s site

The site and block which the Singer Building once occupied from its initial completion 1898 until its demolition from 1967-1969 has a comprehensive history of its own.

1850s

Sometime in the 1850s (Real estate developer Peter Gisley hires architect John W. Ritch to design a new building at 169-171 Broadway)

Sometime in the 1850s (Gisley makes a deal with local baker Bogert to allow him to gain ownership of building in 25 years after he initially refused to give away his old bakery)

Sometime in 1854 The six story structure known as the Gisley Building is completed at a cost of $60,000)

December of 1854 (Harbersher M.Wilson moves into the new structure and is one of the first tenants to do so)

April of 1855 (Wilson’s competitor Joseph Lee moves his store into the building)

May of 1855 (Dr. John Bull moves his office into the Gisley Building)

Sometime in 1859 (The offices of Butler, Hosford & Co. were moved into the building)

1870s

Sometime in 1870 (Quimby, Smith & Co. is one of several jewelers that move into the building)

Sometime in 1873 (E. Richmond of the Kentucky State Lottery holds his office in the Gisley Building and publishes a paper directing the winners of the cash prizes to the building)

April of 1873 (Peter Gisley dies before his lease on the property expires and his estate is forced to give up the building)

July of 1876 (The Gisley Building is decorated with small flags flying from each of the windows to celebrate the United States Centennial)

1880s

Sometime in 1889 (Miss Lamb leases Room No. 33 on the third floor for her typewriting school)

1890s

February of 1890 (A site and block at 151-153 Broadway is acquired by the Singer Manufacturing Company for a new headquarters)

Early 1897 (Ernest Flagg is hired for the design of the new Singer Building and he subsequently files the plans)

June of 1897 (Construction of the Singer Building officially begins with the first excavations)

June of 1897 (A water main bursts and flood the lot during the Singer Building’s excavations)

December of 1897 (A few additional buildings at 85-89 Broadway are acquired by Frederick Bourne to build an annex to the Singer Building)

December of 1897 (Plans for the additional annex are filed by Flagg)

January of 1898 (The original Singer Building is officially completed as the company's new headquarters between Broadway and Liberty Street)

September of 1899 (The Singer Building’s annex is officially completed and is named the Bourne Building)

Timeline of the Singer and City Investing Buildings