Fenn Tower

Last updated
Fenn Tower
FennTCSU.jpg
Fenn Tower on Cleveland State's main campus
Fenn Tower
General information
TypeStudent Housing
Location1983 East 24th Street
2401 Euclid Avenue
Cleveland, Ohio, USA
Construction startedNovember 3, 1929
Completed1929
Opening1930
Cost$1.5 million
Owner Cleveland State University
Height
Roof81 m (266 ft)
Top floor21
Technical details
Floor count22
Lifts/elevators5
Design and construction
Architect George B. Post & Sons
Main contractor Thompson-Starrett Company
National Town and Country Club
Location map United States Cleveland.png
Red pog.svg
USA Ohio location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Usa edcp location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Location2401 Euclid Ave., Cleveland, Ohio
Coordinates 41°30′8″N81°40′20″W / 41.50222°N 81.67222°W / 41.50222; -81.67222 Coordinates: 41°30′8″N81°40′20″W / 41.50222°N 81.67222°W / 41.50222; -81.67222
Arealess than one acre
Built1930
Built by Thompson-Starrett Co.
Architect George B. Post and Sons
Architectural styleArt Deco
NRHP reference No. 03001102 [1]
Added to NRHPOctober 30, 2003

Fenn Tower is a 22-story skyscraper in Cleveland, Ohio. It is owned by Cleveland State University. It was built for the National Town and Country Club, but was only used for one event before closing. It was originally known as the National Town and Country Club before being sold. It was purchased by Fenn College in 1937 for $250,000. [2] It is currently being used as student housing. It is the second tallest structure on the Cleveland State campus, second to Rhodes Tower. The tower was named after Sereno Peck Fenn (one of three principal founders of Sherwin-Williams), [3] whom Fenn College was named after. Fenn Tower is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the National Town and Country Club. It was originally furnished by Rorimer-Brooks Studios, Inc. Originally where the Fenn Gym and The Ellwood H. Fisher Swimming Pool were located, they were removed during the 2005 renovation. [4]

Contents

History

Fenn started by offering night classes in the 1930s in engineering and its model was to specialize in low cost higher education. [5] Fenn's first president was Dr. Cecil V. Thomas who was a well known academician and Ohio educator. In 1932, Fenn added business classes to the growing roster of student programs. [6] The National Town and Country Club Building was supposed to house the gentleman's club for Greater Clevelanders who wanted a central location in which to hold club meetings and events. [7] However, due to the stock market crash in 1929, the club was no longer solvent and the high rise building lay vacant until purchased by Fenn College in 1937 because of Fenn's need for more space. This meant that Fenn was only the third college in the United States to have a skyscraper on its academic campus (the others being the University of Pittsburgh and Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia) and further gave Fenn a much more coveted Euclid Avenue downtown address. [8] In 1940, Fenn became accredited by the North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools. [9] It is noteworthy that throughout its history Fenn never operated at a loss until 1963 when increasing financial pressures forced it into a deal to become part of the new public Cleveland State University.

See also

Related Research Articles

Cleveland State University University

Cleveland State University (CSU) is a public research university in Cleveland, Ohio. It was established in 1964 and opened for classes in 1965 after acquiring the entirety of Fenn College, a private school that had been in operation since 1923. CSU absorbed the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law in 1969. Today it is part of the University System of Ohio, has more than 120,000 alumni, and offers over 200 academic programs. It is classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activity".

Key Tower Skyscraper in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, USA

Key Tower is a skyscraper on Public Square in downtown Cleveland, Ohio. Designed by architect César Pelli, it is the tallest building in the state of Ohio, the 34th-tallest in the United States, and the 165th-tallest in the world. The building reaches 57 stories or 947 feet (289 m) to the top of its spire, and it is visible from up to 20 miles (32 km) away. The tower contains about 1.5 million square feet (139,355 m²) of office space.

Terminal Tower Landmark skyscraper in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, United States

Terminal Tower is a 52-story, 235 m (771 ft), landmark skyscraper located on Public Square in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, United States. Built during the skyscraper boom of the 1920s and 1930s, it was the second-tallest building in the world when it was completed. Terminal Tower stood as the tallest building in North America outside of New York City from its completion in 1930 until 1964. It was the tallest building in the state of Ohio until the completion of Key Tower in 1991, and remains the second-tallest building in the state. The building is part of the Tower City Center mixed-use development, and its major tenants include Forest City Enterprises, former owner of the building, which maintained its corporate headquarters there until 2018, and Riverside Company.

Euclid Avenue (Cleveland)

Euclid Avenue is a major street in Cleveland, Ohio. It runs northeasterly from Public Square in Downtown Cleveland, through the cities of East Cleveland, Euclid and Wickliffe, to the suburb of Willoughby as a part of U.S. Route 20 and U.S. Route 6. The street passes Playhouse Square, University Circle, Cleveland State University, the Cleveland Clinic, Severance Hall, Case Western Reserve University’s Maltz Performing Arts Center, Case Western Reserve University and University Hospitals Case Medical Center. The HealthLine bus rapid transit line runs in designated bus lanes in the median of Euclid Avenue from Public Square to Louis Stokes Station at Windermere in East Cleveland.

Eaton Center (Cleveland)

The Eaton Center is a skyscraper in downtown Cleveland, Ohio. The building has 28 stories and rises to a height of 356 feet (109 m). The structure was one of the structures that expanded Cleveland's central business district eastward in the early-1980s building boom in the city.

North Point Office Building and Tower

The North Point Office Building and Tower is a complex consisting of a skyscraper and an office building. It is located in downtown Cleveland, Ohio at the northeast corner of East 9th Street and Lakeside Avenue. It is the home of Cleveland founded law firm, Jones Day.

AT&T Huron Road Building

The AT&T Huron Road Building is an art deco skyscraper located at 750 Huron Road in downtown Cleveland, Ohio. It serves as the corporate headquarters for Ohio Bell, a regional telephone company owned by AT&T. The building has 24 stories and rises to a height of 365 ft. It was designed by the firm of Hubbell and Benes, in what they called "Modern American Perpendicular Gothic", a style influenced by Eliel Saarinen's unrealized design for the Tribune Tower in Chicago. Work on the building began in 1925 and was completed in 1927 at a cost of $5 million. It was briefly the tallest building in Cleveland, surpassed in 1928 by the Terminal Tower.

Charles Sumner Schneider was an American architect active in Ohio.

Rhodes Tower

The James A. Rhodes Tower, originally known as University Tower, is a 21-story high-rise building on the campus of Cleveland State University in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, United States. With a height of 363 feet (111 m), it is the fourth-tallest educational-purposed building in the United States, behind the Cathedral of Learning, Vertical Campus at Roosevelt University in Chicago, and 25 Park Place in Atlanta which is now owned by Georgia State University. It houses the university's main library on the first eight floors and administration offices for many of the university's academic departments on the upper level floors. It previously held classrooms on the first two floors. It is the tallest structure on the Cleveland State campus, followed by Fenn Tower, and the tallest academic building in Ohio. The tower was named after former Ohio Governor James A. Rhodes who is responsible for signing the legislation that created Cleveland State University on December 18, 1964.

Downtown Columbus, Ohio Neighborhood in Columbus, Ohio

Downtown Columbus is the central business district of Columbus, Ohio. Downtown is centered on the intersection of Broad and High Streets, and encompasses all of the area inside the Inner Belt. Downtown is home to most of the tallest buildings in Columbus.

Sereno Peck Fenn

Sereno Peck Fenn was an early partner in Sherwin-Williams. He was hired as a bookkeeper in 1870 for the Sherwin-Williams Company, and was made a partner ten years later. Fenn held the title of Vice-President of the company from 1921 to 1927. Fenn College was named after him in 1930. A bequest of $100,000 was left to Fenn College, which is now named Cleveland State University. Fenn is buried in the Lake View Cemetery. Fenn was also president of the Cleveland YMCA for 25 years.

Reserve Square

Reserve Square is a two-building skyscraper mixed use apartment complex in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, United States. Both buildings have 23 floors and are 266 feet high. The Square is directly west of the senior residential Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority's Bohn Towers.

Society for Savings Building Building in Cleveland, Ohio

The Society for Savings Building, also known as the Society Corp. Building, is a high-rise building on Public Square in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, United States. The building was constructed in 1889, and stood as the tallest building in Cleveland until 1896, when it was surpassed by the 221-foot Guardian Bank Building. The building stands 152 feet tall, with 10 floors. The Society for Savings Building is often considered to be the first modern skyscraper in Cleveland and the state of Ohio. It was designed by John Wellborn Root of the Chicago-based architectural firm Burnham & Root.

PNC Bank Building (Toledo, Ohio)

The PNC Bank Building is a 368 ft (112 m) tall skyscraper located at 405 Madison Avenue in Downtown Toledo, Ohio. The limestone-faced steel-frame building was constructed in 1930 and is an example of the Art Deco style of architecture. It stood as Toledo's tallest building for 39 years, from its completion in 1930 until the completion of the Tower on the Maumee in 1969. The PNC Bank Building is currently the third-tallest building in Toledo.

History of Fenn College

The history of Fenn College tells the story of Fenn College from its founding until the present.

Westin Hotel Cleveland

The Westin Hotel Cleveland is a modernist 1975-opened 222 foot, 22 story, 484 room Westin high-rise hotel in downtown Cleveland in the city's Civic Center district. The tower rooms sit on top of a multi-story built-in parking garage. The hotel sits along St. Clair Avenue and features rainbow lighting running length wise along its multilevel parking deck at night. This is the only Westin high-end hotel in Cleveland, the other two in the state being in Cincinnati and Columbus.

Lakeview Terrace (Cleveland)

Lakeview Terrace is a set of row houses, apartments, and a high-rise residential building in the Ohio City neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio. Established in 1935, the project culminated in the opening of a 1973 high-rise building called Lakeville Tower. The apartment tower is 208 feet tall and contains 19 stories. The complex is notable for being one of the first public housing projects in the country.

References

  1. "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places . National Park Service. March 13, 2009.
  2. Earnest, G. Brooks (1974). History of Fenn College. Cleveland, Ohio: The Fenn Educational Fund of the Cleveland Foundation. pp. 718 (total).
  3. Tassel, D.D. & Grabowski, J.J. (1987). The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History. Fenn, Sereno Peck Retrieved on 2015-09-29
  4. Theiss, Evelyn (May 6, 2012). "Fenn Tower's opulent start as social club quickly faded in Depression era: Elegant Cleveland". Cleveland, Ohio: The Plain Dealer (Cleveland). Retrieved 6 May 2012.
  5. Tassel, D.D. & Grabowski, J.J. (1987). The Encyclopedia of Cleveland. Cleveland State University Indiana University Press:Bloomington, Indiana.
  6. Whelan, N. (1989). Cleveland:Shaping the Vision. Windsor:Chatsworth, California. p. 229
  7. "National Town and Country Club (Now Fenn Tower)". Retrieved on 2015-09-29
  8. Cleveland State University: A Brief History Retrieved on 2015-09-29
  9. Cleveland State University Alumni: Today Harris Connect:Chesapeake, Virginia. p. 8.

FennCSUCLE.jpg