A long-vacant 20-story office tower in downtown Oklahoma City has finally found a buyer, and this one wants to turn it into homes. P.B. Odom III, a developer best known for building suburban subdivisions, has purchased the Dowell Center at 250 N. Robinson Ave. with plans to convert the historic skyscraper into approximately 200 apartments.
The sale price was not disclosed, according to The Oklahoman. Odom, a south Oklahoma City homebuilder and upscale neighborhood and retail developer who built his reputation on projects like the sprawling Rivendell master-planned community, which includes more than 500 homes, according to the Oklahoma Home Builders Association. The Dowell Center marks his first dip into downtown development, and he's joined on the project by David Odom, per the same account from The Oklahoman.
A Tower With Nearly a Century of History
The building itself has a long and layered past. It was originally constructed in 1926-1927 as the 18-story Petroleum Building, designed by Layton & Forsyth, and it briefly stood as the tallest building in Oklahoma City before Kerr-McGee Corporation expanded it to 20 stories in 1964, according to Wikipedia. That heritage as one of the city's earliest oil-boom landmarks eventually helped it earn a historic designation decades later.
Former economics professor Rick Dowell bought the blighted tower for $350,000 at a county auction in 1995, then later secured a $955,976 EPA Brownfields loan in 2007 to complete asbestos abatement, according to testimony recorded in a congressional hearing transcript. Despite that cleanup work, the building sat largely vacant for decades under Dowell's ownership. Before this year's sale, it had been listed on the market for $12.5 million, or roughly $59.52 per square foot for the 210,000-square-foot property, according to a LoopNet listing.
Tax Credits and a Citywide Conversion Wave
That same listing notes that federal and state heritage agencies have designated the Dowell Center a historic building, which qualifies any adaptive redevelopment project for 20% federal and 20% state historic tax credits — incentives that can significantly reduce the cash equity required for a capital-intensive office-to-residential conversion.
The math behind converting downtown office space into apartments has become increasingly hard for developers to ignore. Downtown Oklahoma City rents were $425 higher than the overall metropolitan statistical area average, per the LoopNet listing. Meanwhile, Oklahoma City's broader office market closed out 2025 with a 25.9% vacancy rate spread across 17.8 million square feet, even as it absorbed 205,668 square feet of net leasing activity during the year, according to Creek Price Edwards.
Following a Well-Worn Path Downtown
Odom's bet on the Dowell Center isn't happening in isolation. Other downtown office-to-apartment projects have also been reported.
The downtown conversion trend has also included other office buildings. Hoodline has tracked this shift closely, previously reporting on another $16.25 million apartment play involving downtown towers, as well as a downtown office building sold for use as a $5 million high school. Whether the Dowell Center's construction costs, financing terms, or conversion timeline will mirror those precedents remains to be seen, but the direction of downtown Oklahoma City's office market looks increasingly settled: up, and into apartments.
