On Thursday, the building itself — all 19 stories of cantilevered concrete and patinaed copper — will be available to the highest bidder. That is when the property will go live on the website for Ten-X Commercial, an Irvine, California-based company that bills itself as "the leading platform for trading commercial real estate." The actual auction, when potential buyers will be able to bid on the unique building, will take place Oct.
7-9. In a statement sent to the media Wednesday morning, Cynthia Blanchard, CEO of current owner Copper Tree, said, "After careful consideration, we have decided to list Price Tower on the Ten X Commercial Real Estate Auction platform. "This move allows us to reach a broader audience of potential buyers who can appreciate the property's unique architectural significance," the statement continues.
"Our goal is to ensure Price Tower's legacy is preserved by finding the right steward to continue its care and vision. We appreciate the community’s support during this transition." In a previous email, sent Tuesday afternoon, it was stated that "the auction will include the Price Tower property itself, excluding the art collection.
The art collection will be addressed in Phase 2 of the new ownership transition. "This phased approach aims to ensure a smooth and successful transition, preserving the rich legacy of Price Tower while opening up new avenues for growth and development under new ownership," the email says. Exactly what "the art collection" will include was not specified, nor was a timeline given for when "Phase 2" would take place.
In an interview with the Tulsa World in July, Blanchard said: "I have been approached" by potential buyers, but she added that "if that ever happened, I would want (the Price Tower) to be handed over to someone that would care about it as much as I do." "But at the same time," Blanchard said, "there is a lot of potential here for some other ideas about how the tower could be used, and I have to at least be open to hearing those ideas." One of those potential buyers appears to have been the Snyder family that bought and revitalized Tulsa's landmark Mayo Hotel.
They established a limited liability company called Price Tower Hotel and Residences in June, according to records from the Oklahoma Secretary of State's Office. Macy Snyder-Amatucci, vice president of Brickhugger LLC, who is listed as the registered agent for Price Tower Hotel and Residences LLC, did not respond to repeated requests to comment on whether the family is continuing to pursue purchasing the Price Tower. Listen now and subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | RSS Feed | SoundStack | All Of Our Podcasts The Price Tower has been mired in controversy for much of the year, ever since it was learned that in April Blanchard had tried to sell off a number of items from the Price Tower through a Dallas firm, 20c Design, that specializes in Mid-Century Modern furnishings and design.
That effort caught the attention of the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy, which holds a preservation easement on the Price Tower and its contents that forbids the sale of items without the conservancy's permission. In an interview with the Tulsa World in July, Blanchard said the decision to sell the items was in response to “a financing challenge that kind of came to a head at the end of April. I can’t go into details about it, but I had to make a tough decision.
” Coincidentally, according to a story published April 26 in the Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise, Blanchard's husband, Anthem Blanchard, stated in court documents that his cyber-security and crypto-currency businesses, HeraSoft and Anthem Vault, were "financially insolvent and unable to fulfill any monetary claims, including significant back pay owed to former employees." Earlier this month, the conservancy filed Uniform Commercial Code statements against the Price Tower owners to “put potential buyers on notice that covered items from the collection cannot be sold without the Conservancy’s consent.” The day after the statements were filed, Blanchard announced that the Price Tower was to be closed to the public, that the businesses with offices in the building would be evicted by the end of the month, that most of the tower's employees were laid off, and that all reservations for the boutique hotel, The Inn at Price Tower, were canceled immediately.
In a statement released Wednesday, conservancy officials said they were "aware that the owners of the Price Tower have announced that it will be sold via auction. Successful auction sales of Wright-designed properties have occurred in the past, and we hope that a purchaser will emerge with the resources and vision necessary to care for this remarkable landmark into the future. "The terms of our easement on Price Tower require that we have the opportunity to inform potential purchasers about the terms of the easement, and to work with them to ensure that it continues to be upheld even after the property changes ownership," the statement says.
"We are fully engaged in ensuring that the easement protections are enforced through the auction process, for both the building and associated collections." The Ten-X website lists 13 other properties that will be auctioned on the same days as the Price Tower, including two in Oklahoma: the Sand Sage Assisted Living Centers in Oklahoma City and Mustang. Opening bids for the 13 properties already listed for the Oct.
7-9 auction range from $1 for an office complex in Pittsburgh to $3 million for a Crowne Plaza hotel in Columbus, Ohio. What the opening bid for the Price Tower will be won't be revealed until Thursday, but estimates range from $1.4 million to $2 million.
Washington County records show that the Price Tower property was most recently assessed at a value of more than $4 million. The Tulsa World is where your story lives.
