In July 2017, developers unveiled an ambitious plan for one of the most recognizable buildings in downtown Mobile.
The former Merchants National Bank tower, later known as the First Alabama Bank and Regions Bank Building, would undergo a restoration valued at approximately $30 million. Its upper floors would be converted from aging offices into apartments, while commercial, retail, and office uses would remain near street level.
The proposal gave the 18-story tower a future after years of declining occupancy. It also represented a larger change in downtown Mobile. Buildings once designed almost entirely for banks, law firms, and professional offices were beginning to accommodate people who wanted to live in the city center.
Construction eventually turned the historic tower into Merchants Plaza, a mixed-use property with 84 apartments and commercial space. The completed project preserved a building that had dominated Mobile’s skyline since 1929 while adapting it to the needs of a modern downtown.
A Landmark at St. Joseph and St. Francis Streets
The Merchants National Bank Building stands at the corner of St. Joseph and St. Francis streets, close to Bienville Square and Mobile’s historic commercial center.
The bank tower rises above several older and lower buildings that reflect the scale of downtown Mobile before high-rise construction became common. Its height, vertical design, and distinctive pyramidal roof make it easy to identify from streets throughout the central business district.
The building contains approximately 225,000 square feet across 18 stories. When it opened, it represented a major change in the city’s architecture.
Mobile already had important banks, hotels, government buildings, warehouses, and commercial blocks. The Merchants tower introduced the appearance and engineering of a modern skyscraper to the Gulf Coast.
For decades, it served as both a working office building and a visual symbol of the city’s financial importance.
The Origins of Merchants Bank
The institution behind the tower began much earlier than the building itself.
The Merchants Bank of Mobile was incorporated in 1901. Its early offices were located at 56 St. Francis Street, placing the bank within the commercial district where many of Mobile’s financial and professional institutions operated.
In 1927, the institution became Merchants National Bank. The change came during a period of business expansion and increased confidence in Mobile’s economy.
Bank leaders soon moved forward with a headquarters that would reflect the institution’s new status. Instead of constructing another traditional low-rise bank, they commissioned an 18-story tower.
The project was an extraordinary investment for Mobile during the late 1920s. It required modern elevators, steel framing, mechanical systems, fire protection, and a design capable of supporting offices far above the surrounding streets.
A Skyscraper Opens in 1929
The Merchants National Bank Building was dedicated on October 11, 1929.
Its opening came during a dramatic moment in American economic history. Only weeks later, the Wall Street crash would help begin the Great Depression.
The tower nevertheless continued operating as the headquarters of Merchants National Bank and as a multitenant office building.
At 18 stories and approximately 236 feet, it became the tallest building in Mobile. It was also widely described as the first true skyscraper constructed on the Gulf Coast.
The building remained Mobile’s tallest for more than three decades. It lost that distinction only after the completion of a newer office tower in 1965.
Even after taller buildings appeared, the Merchants tower retained a distinctive place in the skyline because of its proportions, ornament, and copper-covered pyramidal crown.
Architecture Designed for Permanence
The Chicago architectural firm Graham, Anderson, Probst & White designed the building.
The firm was associated with major commercial, transportation, and civic projects. Its architects combined the structural possibilities of modern high-rise construction with carefully organized classical and Art Deco details.
The Merchants tower follows a traditional skyscraper composition. Its lower floors create a substantial base along the street. The central section rises in a strong vertical form, while the upper levels and pyramidal roof create a recognizable crown.
Repeated windows emphasize the building’s height. Decorative details around the lower floors give the pedestrian level a more elaborate appearance than the relatively restrained office levels above.
The copper-plated roof became one of the building’s defining features. As the copper aged, it developed the green surface associated with many historic roofs and monuments.
The design allowed the building to appear modern in 1929 without becoming disconnected from the established architecture of downtown Mobile.
Inside the Original Bank Tower
The lower portion of the building contained the banking facilities and public spaces used by Merchants National Bank.
Customers entered a formal interior designed to communicate security, stability, and institutional importance. High ceilings, durable materials, decorative finishes, and the bank vault reinforced that impression.
The floors above the bank were divided into offices occupied by lawyers, accountants, dentists, business owners, and other professionals.
The tower became particularly important to Mobile’s legal community. Several law firms and individual attorneys began or expanded their practices inside the building.
Other tenants reflected the everyday life of a busy office tower. The first floor included the Albrecht & Wood drugstore, while a full-service dental practice operated on the 14th floor.
Employees, customers, clients, and delivery workers moved through the building each day. The tower was not only a monument on the skyline. It was a small vertical business district.
Decades as a Banking Headquarters
Merchants National Bank remained associated with the building for nearly half a century.
During that period, Mobile changed considerably. The port expanded, suburban development moved businesses and residents away from the traditional center, and new office towers competed for major tenants.
Merchants National merged with First Alabama Bancshares in 1981. The bank’s name became First Alabama Bank in 1985.
Later banking mergers and rebranding connected the building with Regions Bank. Many residents consequently knew it as the Regions Bank Building even though the original Merchants National name remained visible in its history and architectural identity.
The changes reflected broader consolidation within American banking. Local institutions increasingly became parts of larger regional financial companies.
The building survived each transition, but its role as a premier banking headquarters gradually weakened.
Downtown Offices Lose Their Advantage
Office buildings depend on more than architectural importance. They must provide layouts, technology, parking, mechanical systems, and amenities that modern tenants consider useful.
By the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, many companies preferred suburban office parks or newer towers. Those properties could offer large floor plates, simple parking, updated air-conditioning systems, and easier highway access.
Historic towers faced several disadvantages.
Their offices had often been divided repeatedly for previous tenants. Electrical and communication systems required upgrades. Elevators, plumbing, fire protection, and climate-control equipment could be expensive to replace.
Downtown parking was another concern. Employees accustomed to free surface lots did not always want to use garages or walk several blocks from a parking space.
As tenants left the Merchants building, filling the upper floors with new conventional offices became increasingly difficult.
Why Vacancy Threatened the Building
A largely empty skyscraper can deteriorate even when its exterior still appears impressive.
Rental income pays for roof repairs, elevators, security, utilities, insurance, and maintenance. When occupancy declines, owners may struggle to justify major investments in systems that serve mostly unused space.
Water intrusion or mechanical failure can then damage interiors. Empty floors become harder to market, creating a cycle in which declining occupancy leads to deferred maintenance and further decline.
Demolishing a historic high-rise also presents enormous practical and cultural costs. Its location among active downtown streets makes removal difficult, while its disappearance would permanently alter the skyline.
The Merchants tower needed more than repairs. It needed a use capable of filling a large amount of space for decades.
Downtown Mobile Begins Changing
By the 2010s, downtown Mobile was attracting renewed investment.
Historic warehouses and commercial buildings were becoming apartments, restaurants, breweries, hotels, offices, and event spaces. Public improvements supported entertainment districts, cultural attractions, and pedestrian activity.
The return of residential development was particularly important.
An office district can become quiet after employees leave in the evening. Residents create demand throughout the day for restaurants, grocery stores, services, entertainment, and public spaces.
People living downtown also place occupied windows above streets that previously became empty at night. This can strengthen the sense that the city center is a neighborhood rather than only a workplace or festival destination.
The Merchants National Bank Building offered an opportunity to add a substantial number of homes without constructing a new tower.
The 2017 Merchants Plaza Announcement
Plans for the redevelopment were formally presented on July 27, 2017, inside the building’s historic bank lobby.
Heritage Land & Development led the project. The development team also involved The Crump Firm, Harbert Realty Services, NAI Mobile, and McNair Historic Preservation.
Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimpson, City Council President Gina Gregory, and Mobile County Commissioner Merceria Ludgood participated in the unveiling.
The developers introduced the name Merchants Plaza, reconnecting the property with the bank that originally constructed it.
The approximately $30 million plan called for a mixed-use development. Early descriptions anticipated more than 80 market-rate apartments, restored office areas, commercial uses, restaurants, and retail space.
The announcement was significant because it replaced vague discussion about saving the building with a defined plan, development team, financing strategy, and new identity.
Why Apartments Made Sense
Converting the tower into apartments addressed several weaknesses of the office market.
A company searching for office space may need an entire floor or several connected floors. Apartment development divides the same space among many separate residents.
Historic office dimensions can also produce unusual homes. Columns, deep windows, exposed structural elements, and varied floor shapes become design features rather than inconveniences.
Upper floors offer views that ordinary low-rise apartments cannot provide. Residents can see the Mobile River, downtown streets, church towers, port facilities, and other parts of the city.
The location also supports a walkable lifestyle. Bienville Square, restaurants, offices, museums, entertainment venues, government buildings, and waterfront attractions are located nearby.
Residential conversion therefore gave the tower a market connected directly to its height, architecture, and downtown location.
The Role of Historic Tax Credits
The project used state historic preservation tax credits as part of its financing.
Historic tax credits are intended to make difficult restoration projects more economically practical. Developers receive credits based on qualifying rehabilitation expenses when work follows approved preservation standards.
The credits do not remove the cost of construction. They reduce part of the financial gap between restoring an old building and developing a simpler new property.
This matters because historic towers often contain expensive surprises. Old plumbing may need complete replacement. Electrical systems may not support modern appliances and technology. Hazardous materials may require controlled removal.
Preservation rules can also require developers to repair original materials or reproduce historic details instead of replacing them with less expensive alternatives.
In return for the financial incentive, the rehabilitation must retain important features that give the property its historic character.
Preparing the Tower for Construction
The redevelopment did not begin with the immediate removal of every office.
Several long-term tenants remained in the building after the 2017 announcement. Some had occupied offices there since the 1970s and had deep connections with the property.
Those businesses needed time to find new locations and move records, furniture, equipment, and employees.
By spring 2018, the remaining tenants were leaving. The tower was completely vacant by that summer, allowing major interior work to begin.
Vacating the building simplified construction but also marked the end of its original era. For the first time in decades, offices that had served generations of attorneys and professionals were empty at the same time.
The next occupants would use most of those floors as homes rather than workplaces.
Converting Offices into Homes
An office-to-apartment conversion requires far more than adding kitchens and bedroom walls.
Every residence needs access to plumbing, ventilation, electricity, natural light, fire exits, and modern communication services.
Bathrooms and kitchens require water supply and drainage lines that ordinary offices may not contain. Laundry equipment adds further plumbing and electrical demand.
Walls between apartments must control sound and provide required fire resistance. Doors, corridors, alarms, stairs, and sprinklers must satisfy residential safety codes.
The project also needed to address accessibility. Common areas and selected residences had to accommodate people with disabilities without unnecessarily removing historic building features.
Developers needed to fit these systems within a structure designed nearly 90 years earlier.
A Complete Infrastructure Overhaul
White-Spunner Construction was contracted in 2019 to complete the major interior transformation.
The work included the removal and replacement of the building’s sprinkler, mechanical, plumbing, and electrical systems.
This infrastructure was essential even though much of it would remain hidden after construction.
A historic exterior cannot make a building functional when its pipes, wiring, ventilation, or fire systems fail to meet modern standards. Replacing those systems allowed the tower to operate safely as a combination of housing and commercial space.
Elevators also became especially important. Residents living more than a dozen floors above the street needed dependable daily service, while emergency procedures had to account for the height of the building.
The project retained the structure and historic identity of the tower while effectively rebuilding much of its internal operating system.
Preserving the Historic Character
The developers did not attempt to make Merchants Plaza look like a newly constructed suburban apartment complex.
Historic elements remained part of the finished design. The bank lobby, exterior stonework, ornamental details, vault, high ceilings, and other surviving features continued telling the story of the building.
Inside the residences, exposed brick, concrete surfaces, large windows, structural columns, and varied layouts helped distinguish individual apartments.
Not every original office partition could remain. Those walls reflected decades of changing tenants rather than the most important historic design.
The preservation strategy focused on the features that defined the tower while allowing its interior spaces to support an entirely different use.
This balance is central to adaptive reuse. A building cannot survive merely as a frozen artifact when no practical organization can afford to maintain it. It must change enough to remain useful without losing the qualities that make it worth saving.
From 82 Planned Apartments to 84 Completed Homes
Early announcements described approximately 80 or 82 residential units. The final construction produced 84 upscale loft apartments.
Changing the count during design is common in a project of this complexity. Structural columns, window locations, mechanical shafts, historic features, and market demand influence the final size and arrangement of apartments.
The completed residences included studios, one-bedroom units, and larger apartments. Their floor plans varied because the tower did not begin as a standardized residential building.
The first two floors remained dedicated mainly to commercial, retail, and office functions.
This arrangement preserved activity in the lower levels while placing residents throughout the upper tower.
Merchants Plaza Opens a New Chapter
The main redevelopment was completed in 2020.
The finished Merchants Plaza contained apartments above a combination of office, banking, retail, and commercial spaces. The property again housed a substantial daily population after years of declining occupancy.
Construction transformed the tower without removing its most recognizable external features. From the street, it remained the same historic skyscraper that had stood over downtown Mobile since 1929.
Inside, however, former professional offices had become kitchens, living rooms, bedrooms, and shared residential amenities.
The project gave the building a mixed population. Residents returned home while office employees finished work, and commercial visitors continued using the lower floors.
This blend created activity at times when a traditional office tower might otherwise be empty.
Why Mixed-Use Development Matters
A mixed-use building spreads risk across several types of tenants.
If demand for office space weakens, residential income may continue supporting the property. If apartment demand changes, commercial tenants still contribute to operations.
Different users also support one another. Residents may become customers of nearby restaurants and services. Office employees can use businesses located within or near the building.
Street-level commercial space prevents a residential conversion from turning the lower floors into blank walls or private areas disconnected from pedestrians.
This is especially important at a prominent downtown corner. The success of the building affects not only its owners and occupants but also the experience of people walking along St. Joseph and St. Francis streets.
A Larger Downtown Residential Movement
Merchants Plaza was part of a wider group of adaptive reuse projects in Mobile.
Other historic buildings were being converted into apartments, hotels, restaurants, breweries, offices, and event spaces. New residential developments were also appearing near the waterfront and older commercial districts.
Each project added residents, but the Merchants tower made an especially visible statement.
It showed that even one of downtown’s largest historic office properties could become housing. Developers did not need to choose between preserving the skyline and adding modern residences.
The project also strengthened confidence in nearby investment. An occupied and restored landmark is more likely to support surrounding businesses than a partially empty tower requiring uncertain repairs.
The Environmental Value of Reuse
Adaptive reuse can also reduce the environmental cost associated with demolition and new construction.
The concrete, steel, masonry, and other materials already contained in the Merchants tower represented enormous amounts of energy and labor.
Demolishing the building would have produced a major waste stream. Constructing a replacement of similar size would have required new structural materials and years of work.
Restoration still consumed resources. New mechanical systems, interior materials, appliances, windows, and finishes were necessary.
The project nevertheless retained the primary structure and exterior rather than discarding them. It extended the useful life of materials installed nearly a century earlier.
Preservation as Economic Development
Historic preservation is sometimes treated as a conflict between protecting the past and encouraging economic growth.
Merchants Plaza demonstrates how the two goals can support one another.
The restoration created construction work, generated new residential units, supported commercial tenants, and returned underused space to the tax base.
At the same time, it preserved a landmark that contributes to Mobile’s identity.
A generic new apartment tower could provide housing. It could not reproduce the history, craftsmanship, or established place in the skyline held by the Merchants building.
That uniqueness has economic value. Residents, companies, and visitors may choose a historic building precisely because it offers an experience unavailable in ordinary development.
What the Building Represents Today
The Merchants tower has now passed through several distinct periods.
It began as the headquarters of a growing local bank. It became a multitenant professional building filled with lawyers, medical offices, retailers, and financial employees.
Bank mergers changed its name, newer offices changed the commercial market, and declining occupancy placed its future in doubt.
The 2017 redevelopment plan provided another identity. Merchants Plaza returned to the building’s original name while changing most of its upper floors from offices into residences.
The result is not a perfect recreation of the tower as it appeared in 1929. It is a working building shaped by several layers of Mobile history.
A Successful Future for a 1929 Skyscraper
When the $30 million restoration was announced, the project remained a proposal. Financing, tenant relocation, preservation approval, design, and construction still had to be completed.
The final redevelopment took several years and produced slightly more apartments than originally anticipated.
Its completion proved that the historic tower could support a modern use without losing the features that made it one of Mobile’s best-known buildings.
The copper crown still rises above downtown. The original bank name remains connected with the property. Commercial activity continues near the street.
The greatest difference appears after business hours. Lights now remain on across former office floors because people live there.
Merchants Plaza preserved Mobile’s first skyscraper by allowing it to become something new. The building no longer depends entirely on the banking and office economy that created it. It has become part of downtown Mobile’s revival as a place to live, work, shop, and spend time.