Reynolds Building

The Reynolds Building is a 314ft (96m) skyscraper in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. It was completed in 1929 and has 21 floors. When completed as the headquarters of R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, it was the tallest building in the United States south of Baltimore, Maryland, and it won a national architecture award. The building is well known for being the predecessor and prototype for the much larger Empire State Building that was built in 1931 in New York City.

The building was designed, just as the Empire State Building, for the purpose of corporate offices with retail outlets on the first floor. Shreve & Lamb, the architects, were asked for "an effect of conservatism along with attractiveness, but to avoid flashiness." But regarding the result, a 1997 Winston-Salem Journal article said, "city residents could be forgiven for wondering whether the architects followed the directive" because "Gray-brown marble from Missouri, black marble from Belgium and buff-colored marble from France covered the walls and floor. The ceiling was festooned with gold leaves, and the grillwork, elevator doors and door frames were bright, gleaming brass." The stock market crash of 1929 hurt the Reynolds Building's leasing business temporarily, but it was more successful than other similar buildings at leasing offices. Its promotional brochure said that the 14th, 15th, and fourth floors were reserved for doctors and dentists, but this might not have been the case. Most of the offices were occupied by organizations related to the tobacco industry, such as railroads, insurance companies, and attorneys.

On November 23, 2009 the Winston-Salem Journal reported that Reynolds American, Inc. put the building up for sale after cutting jobs and moving many offices into the Plaza Building next door. Forsyth County tax records show the Reynolds Building's value as $12.3 million. The building offers 240,000 square feet (22,000 m2) of office space, much of that Class B.

In 2012, Quaintance-Weaver Restaurants and Hotels, which owned the Proximity and O. Henry hotels in nearby Greensboro, considered plans to turn the building into a luxury hotel for business travelers, but ultimately chose not to proceed.