Suburban Sore Thumbs
 

outside of a few little clumps in places like evanston, schaumburg, and oak park, suburban chicago generally doesn't do highrises.

but we do have a big one that sticks out like a sore thumb on the pancake flat topography of chicagoland's seemingly infinite sprawltopia.

"how did something that tall and expensive get built in the relative middle of nowhere?"


Oak Brook Terrace Tower | 418 FT | 31 FLOORS | 1986

google maps: https://www.google.com/maps/@41.8521.../data=!3m1!1e3

https://s3-prod.chicagobusiness.com/...49.59%20AM.png
source: https://www.chicagobusiness.com/comm...ands-big-lease






how about your metro, do you have any lonely suburban sore thumb towers?

All that building needs is a moat full of crocodiles and it would be perfect.

great idea for a thread, and I kind of love the Oak Brook tower.

Oral Roberts University near Tulsa, OK has one or two examples, iirc?

The NY area has a couple that I know of, but not many. You can spot some from the NJ Turnpike, like here and here.

Suburban Detroit is littered with them, so it would be a very time consuming to document them all. Most of the towers built in the Detroit area since the 1960s would qualify. I'd be surprised if the Detroit area isn't in the top 3 nationally for count of towers thrown up in random ass places. But here are some examples:

Southfield apartment tower: https://goo.gl/maps/e7JvmGMgGuLF9iUJA

Southfield Town Center: https://goo.gl/maps/sz3UCPvo1s89Fztq5

A sore thumb graveyard in Southfield: https://goo.gl/maps/B7dnz2TtC7c869N47

Two thumbs up in Southfield: https://goo.gl/maps/TmMvNWRAAgu49s186

My favorite suburban Detroit sore thumb is more like a middle finger to urban development: https://goo.gl/maps/b2g2ix4Da7oeFZqE9

This is within Chicago city limits, but very isolated:

https://www.google.com/maps/@41.6937...7i16384!8i8192

And Wilson Hall must have been more impressive before the suburbs made it out to Fermilab:
https://www.google.com/maps/@41.8408...7i10240!8i5120

A highrise with surface parking. Jesus christ.

Most suburban towers in Toronto are in large clusters, but these new towers in Vaughan do have a sore thumb quality for now, although many additional new towers are going up all around the area now, so the sore thumb effect will be short lived.

https://goo.gl/maps/5r6HKgdCGQ83PHwe9

Now called Cityplex Towers the tallest is 648 ft tall. Oral Roberts University is in the foreground.

https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.town...ize=1200%2C935

https://tulsaworld.com/lifestyles/or...6132b34fb.html

From across the river you can also see the nearby 28 story River Spirit casino hotel tower
https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.town...ize=1200%2C800

https://tulsaworld.com/archive/flyin...886ab5d6c.html

^ Excellent example of a "suburban sore thumb". :tup:

Orel Roberts University, including the cityplex towers, has some truly strange and magnificent architecture.

I've personally never seen those buildings as "sore thumbs". But maybe being used to using the NJ Turnpike, I never saw them as sticking out so much. I expect to see highrises here and there. These are not terribly tall, either. To me, in North Jersey, this building is more of a sore thumb.

I see those buildings you mentioned more as the natural product of "exit-oriented development", like transit-oriented development. Land next to an exit is going to have a high value, necessitating building upward. It reminds me of this development on the edge of Toronto.

It all kind of looks like the Tomorrowland area of Disneyland to me. Like you said, strange, but fascinating even if I can't stand Roberts' beliefs.

For the Bay Area, two immediately come to mind:

In Emeryville, est. 2019 population 12,068, there's Pacific Park Plaza, a residential tower of 318 ft. and 30 stories that definitely sticks out like a sore thumb despite a smattering of mid-rises on the nearby bay shore:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...tshore_Fwy.jpg
source: wikipedia

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...istie_Park.jpg
source: wikipedia

And in Campbell, est. 2019 population 41,793, there's the rather curiously-scaled Pruneyard towers, the tallest of which is 256 ft. tall with 18 stories. The tallest tower in Silicon Valley until 1996, it really stands out in such a suburban environment:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...ard_towers.jpg
source: wikipedia

https://ssl.cdn-redfin.com/photo/8/m...63797_54_3.jpg
source

This might not count (unless you stretch the definition of suburban Springfield to its max), but if we're doing Oral Roberts...

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EdoRFWtW...pg&name=medium
source

Not as tall, but seriously conspicuous out there in the middle of the Pioneer Valley, Umass Amherst's Du Bois Library always put a smile on my face. 300 feet, 30 stories tall. It was the world's tallest library when it was topped off in 1969. And back when I was there, the word was that Whitey Bulger was hiding out in the top 2 floors, which were mysteriously closed once his brother William Bulger became Umass' President.

https://www.google.com/maps/@34.2295...7i16384!8i8192


These two towers in Oxnard always seemed odd. One is 25 stories maybe?

Blue Hill Plaza - Pearl River, NY.

https://42floors.com/images/H02c2e1d...98e7ad841250d7

https://42floors.com/us/ny/pearl-river/1-blue-hill-plz

Sheraton Hotel - Mahwah, NJ

https://live.staticflickr.com/3011/1...e6b0a3b5_b.jpg
Sheraton Mahwah Hotel by Martin Jones, on Flickr

The taller Morgan Stanley building in Oxnard is 300ft, 22 floors. The City National Bank Building is just over 200ft, 14 floors.

For NJ, 2 Tower Center Blvd in East Brunsiwck comes to mind.

Its right off Turnpike exit 9.

https://njbiz.com/files/2015/12/AR-151209815.jpg
Credit: https://njbiz.com/east-brunswicks-tw...-for-60m-plus/


Here's the streetview: https://www.google.com/maps/uv?hl=en...px8wE3oECBMQBg

Some of these SoCal Indian casinos look ridiculous out in the middle of nowhere:

https://goo.gl/maps/G69RJBW8Zs6W9iuP7
https://goo.gl/maps/t3TdeCgN96WtKMqZA ("tallest in Riverside county")
https://goo.gl/maps/4Bx6XLef57Ac8z2t7
https://goo.gl/maps/nfJC3iNjNEth8eHq8
https://goo.gl/maps/7sxWjbcDepzWYqeH9

Nashville's suburban office areas are generally midrise, but there is one building that, although it clocks in at just under 200 feet only, sticks out like a sore thumb as a result. This one does differ from most of these other examples because it's in the small but historic downtown Murfreesboro rather than an office park:

https://www.emporis.com/images/show/...ine-street.jpg