One Nationwide Plaza


One Nationwide Plaza is a 40-story skyscraper in Columbus, Ohio that serves as the corporate office headquarters of Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company. It is part of the complex of buildings known as Nationwide Plaza.
Nationwide outgrew its 246 North High Street Building by the 1970s and work began on a new headquarters for the company. In 1977, the 146 m building was completed. The building is located at the corner of N. High Street and what is now Nationwide Blvd. on the northern edge of downtown Columbus, Ohio.

Design

The building was designed by Brubaker/Brandt and Harrison & Abramovitz. The façade is dark vertical steel ribs bordered by white limestone ends and follows the modernist style. Blue spotlights light the exterior at night, mimicking the blue box logo of Nationwide Mutual Insurance. In December the interior lights are set so that it reads "happy holidays" to observers of the building. They also do the same but with a heart on Valentine's Day. The glass elevator on the side of the building is an express elevator that once went up to a restaurant on the 38th floor of the building, called One Nation. One Nation lasted many years, but closed in 1997, and the glass elevator is permanently out of service.
One Nationwide Plaza was the first of several buildings known collectively as Nationwide Plaza: