WoodmenLife Tower

WoodmenLife Tower has been praised for its role in revitalizing the downtown Omaha district and features an LED display that lights up the building for holidays and special events.

The WoodmenLife Tower is a 478.02 feet (145.70 m) international style skyscraper located at 1700 Farnam Street in downtown Omaha, Nebraska.

[2] The total size of the building is 533,281 square feet (49,543.4 m2), with WoodmenLife Insurance Company occupying the majority of the space.

Tenants include law firms, U.S. Bank, a federal credit union, a capital group, a nonprofit organization, and the offices for a locomotive manufacturer.

[6][7] These letters are outfitted with an LED system capable of displaying 16 million individual colors and graphics, and can be seen up to 78 miles (126 km) away by airplane.

[10] This involved demolishing and replacing the Edward Rosewater's Bee Building, which had been owned by Woodmen of the World since 1932 and served as their previous headquarters.

[13][2][14] In 1990, in celebration of Woodmen of the World Life Insurance Society's 100th anniversary, time capsules earmarked for 2040 were placed in the lobby floor.

[16] This same year, the Woodman of the World became involved in a minor controversy when it requested that the Woodmen Tower be exempt from some property taxes.

[17] This sparked a larger debate by the Douglas County Board over whether Woodmen of the World should be classified as a charity or a profitable business.

The total project cost millions of dollars and saw another new LED system installed, this time centered around the WoodmenLife letters so that they light up during the night.

[21][22] In 1988, the NPFP, led by the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission and Fontenelle Forest's Raptor Recovery program, first released seven falcons from the top of Woodmen Tower.

[23] During construction, Omaha mayor Alexander V. Sorensen described the Woodmen Tower as the “most magnificent building between Chicago and Denver”.