On your right is the Wells Fargo Tower… Roanoke’s big-league skyscraper moment. At 21 stories and about 320 feet tall, it’s still the tallest building in the city-and, just to rub it in a little, the tallest in all of Southwest Virginia. Not bad for a place better known for mountains than high-rises.
The story kicks off in May of 1990, when they broke ground with the kind of civic optimism you can practically hear in the old news clips. City and business leaders showed up, and to help everyone “get” the scale, they released a balloon up to the future height of the building-320 feet-like a floating ruler against the sky. By October, the structure had already climbed to the seventh floor… and then tragedy hit. On October 29, a worker fell from that seventh floor and died. It was the only fatal accident tied to the project, but it’s a sobering reminder that these clean lines and shiny windows were built by real people doing dangerous work.
By April 1991, the last concrete went in, and by October the first tenant moved in-pretty quick for a tower this size. Architecturally, it’s postmodern, topped with a copper pyramid and a spire-about 50 feet plus another 48-tipping its hat to the Hotel Roanoke up the way. At night, 135 floodlights switch it into “look at me” mode.
Oh, and it’s 21 floors… except there’s no 13th floor, because even corporate real estate respects a good old-fashioned superstition.
When you’re set, Colonial National Bank is a 4-minute walk heading west.
