The Mutual of Omaha headquarters’ shear tower will top out next month, according to the head of Lanoha, an Omaha-based real estate company developing the city’s newest skyscraper. The shear tower is the central core that acts as the building’s spine. It’s now more than 600 feet tall.
Jason Lanoha, president & CEO of Lanoha, was a guest on last Saturday’s Grow Omaha show on News-Radio 1110 KFAB. His company is developing the 44-story office building that will eventually be Mutual of Omaha’s home office. When the building is complete, it will be 677 feet, making it the tallest building in a multi-state region.
The $600 million project is rising on the northwest corner of 14th & Farnam Street downtown. Lanoha said everything is on track, and the project should meet its scheduled completion date at the end of 2026.
Crews are currently working on the shear tower’s 42nd floor. Though only a couple more floors remain, the building will still add quite a bit of height. The 44th floor will have a double-height ceiling, which will allow the top floor to have a visually impactful interior. Additionally, the exterior walls will extend quite a bit higher than the roof. Not only will that increase the building’s height, it will form an architectural crown that will hide rooftop air-handling equipment.
At more than 15 feet, the tower will have a higher floor-to-floor height than many other office buildings. By making each floor so high, Mutual of Omaha will have more long-term flexibility in how it uses each floor. The high ceilings will also bring in more natural daylight. On most of the workplace floors, the building will have an under-floor air system.
The tower crane hovering over the building will go up one more time. It’s a self-jumping tower crane, which means it raises itself up when necessary and will eventually take itself down when the project is done. The crane is currently about 700 feet high and will soon go up to 750 feet.
Tall buildings create a lot of construction challenges, but that’s especially the case in a city like Omaha, that doesn’t have many existing skyscrapers. The city has a lack of tradespeople who have worked on skyscrapers in the past. Though some talent has been imported from out of town, the project retains an Omaha-centric feel.
“We all collectively – Lanoha, the design team, and most importantly, mutual of Omaha – wanted to keep as many of the dollars here locally,” Lanoha said. “That was the biggest challenge. We kept about 73 percent of the dollars spent on the building were with local folks.”
After Mutual moves into its new headquarters, the Fortune 500 insurance company will leave behind its current offices in Midtown. Lanoha will acquire all the land from Mutual in order to redevelop it.
In a project called, “Midtown Forward,” Lanoha is master-planning everything from Interstate 480 to 36th Street. The area includes several under-utilized parking lots, three parking structures that the City of Omaha just acquired and all the existing Mutual buildings.
“Our main goal is to add real new jobs in the heart of Omaha,” Lanohan said. “There aren’t many swaths of urban land near public transportation and existing employers. It’s some of the best dirt in the state. It might take a while, but we’re focused on bringing in the right (stakeholders).”
The existing Mutual of Omaha buildings will be preserved and incorporated into the redevelopment plans. Mutual’s current south office building at 3333 Farnam Street has tenants in addition to Mutual of Omaha. It will remain an office building.
The current main HQ building – at 285 feet high, it’s the seventh-tallest building in Omaha and eighth-tallest in Nebraska – will be preserved. Because redeveloping that building will be challenging, there had been some concern that it might have to come down.
“It will no longer be an office building, but it’s too important building for it to go away,” Lanoha said. “It will stay.”
Lanoha said it’s too early to know exactly how the entire complex will be redeveloped. The iconic dome on the southwest corner of 33rd & Dodge Street will also be preserved. But it comes with its challenges too as the dome tops off three underground floors and an underground tunnel system.
Photo by Brad Williams
