How an oil bust robbed Houston of its tallest skyscraper

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In 1982, a design competition between several architectural firms resulted in a plan for an 82-story skyscraper called "The Bank of the Southwest Tower." One year later plans for Houston's tallest building were scrapped.

At the time, it would have been the largest building in the world outside of Chicago and New York.

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''Our feeling was that Houston had a sculpture garden of magnificent buildings, but somehow they did not all fit together,'' John T. Cater, the chairman to the bank designing the tower, told the New York Times in 1982. Cater said the city needed "something that would enable people flying over the city to say, that's Houston."

In a strange twist of irony, the Federal Aviation Administration found that the proposed 1,402-foot structure was a hazard to aircraft landing and taking off at Hobby Airport. Coupled with a sudden oil bust, the 82-story skyscraper was never built.

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More than 30 years later, the vacant parking lot is still there, the only visible evidence of the planned $350 - $400 million skyscraper.

In total, seven buildings were canceled due to the oil bust in the 1980s according to a Houston Post article at the time.

It's difficult to mourn something that never existed, but while driving and seeing Houston's skyline in the distance, it's hard not to feel a little disappointment knowing that it came so close.

Check out images of the proposed skyscraper above, as well as other buildings and construction projects that were never built.