Price Tower Owner Temporarily Closes Bartlesville Landmark, Calls For Community Support

The owner of Price Tower in Bartlesville says she’s done all she can to keep the place open and even though she’s closing it temporarily, she hopes it can reopen.

Cynthia Blanchard says she recently sold some items from inside the building tom help raise money, but that led to a terrible backlash and now she feels she has no other options.

She hopes people who love the landmark will step up to help.

Blanchard’s company took over the Price Tower in May of 2023 from the non-profit that owned it for decades.

She says the businesses inside the tower weren’t profitable and her goal was to change that.

“Non-profits, you have to depend on donations,” said Blanchard. “A lot of those donations will be earmarked specifically for certain things. This was never set up in the beginning to focus on the success of the businesses.”

She says it costs nearly $160,000 each month to run the tower, which is more than it brings in.

“You have $44,000 to $50,000 of payroll,” said Blanchard. “You have all of these costs. And you’re running at 40% occupancy for the hotel. You can’t sustain that.”

To try and keep the doors open, Blanchard sold items from the building.

The Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy Group criticized her for it, saying she didn’t have the right to do that.

Blanchard says the terms of their agreement expired when her company took ownership.

“Maybe I could sell something to keep the doors open and pay my employees,” said Blanchard. “But in light of what had happened last time and quite frankly, there wasn’t a market to do that anyway, and I didn’t want to do that, but this is the result.”

Blanchard says she hopes people in Bartlesville will support the tower in the future,  even though it’s not clear yet, what that future holds.

“Let’s see what the community’s made of,” said Blanchard. “Let’s see if they will step up. I hope they do. I love this community. I love Bartlesville. If they love the tower as much as I do, I’m hoping that they will come together.”

Blanchard says the hotel is closed temporarily, but tours of the building will continue for as long as they can.