One City Center (Durham)

The Hill Building is a 17-story modernistic skyscraper located in Durham, North Carolina. Built in 1935–1937, the Hill Building was designed by New York City architecture firm Shreve, Lamb & Harmon, best known for the design of the Empire State Building. Named for John Sprunt Hill, and built to house the Durham Bank & Trust Company, the building is outfitted with Art Deco ornamentation, interior fluted doors and an exquisitely crafted letter box. The building is in the heart of downtown Durham, located at the intersection of Main and Corcoran Streets. The Hill building was home to Durham Bank & Trust and its successor, Central Carolina Bank and Trust, from 1937 until its 2005 purchase by SunTrust Banks, which had its local headquarters in the building until 2006.Greenfire Real Estate Holdings, which bought the Hill Building in 2006, successfully renovated the building into a 165-room luxury hotel. The city of Durham voted to add $4.2 million after a September 20, 2010 public hearing regarding this plan, and Durham County voted to add $1 million. Greenfire hoped historic tax credits would provide $11 million, and other tax credits would add $4 million.In February 2013, Greenfire formed a joint venture with Kentucky-based hotel operator 21C Museum Hotels. Construction began in late July 2013 and was completed in 2015. Skanska was in charge of the construction project in partnership with 21c Museum Hotels. The renovation also includes a plan for a contemporary art museum, upscale restaurants, bar and ballroom. The museum is open 24 hours per day and offers free admission. An estimated $48 million was spent to complete the entire renovation for the Hill Building. The hotel itself was inducted into Historic Hotels of America, the official program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, in 2019.

The Old North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company Building, also known as the Mechanics and Farmers Bank Building, is an office building at 114-116 West Parrish Street in downtown Durham, North Carolina. It formerly served as the headquarters for the North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company, which was formerly one of the nation's largest companies founded and owned by African-Americans. The building was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1975.

Downtown Durham Historic District is a national historic district located at Durham, Durham County, North Carolina. The district encompasses 97 contributing buildings and 1 contributing structure in the central business district of Durham. The buildings primarily date from the first four decades of the 20th century and include notable examples of Colonial Revival, Italianate, and Art Deco architecture. Notable buildings include the St. Philip's Episcopal Church (1907), Trinity Methodist Episcopal Church (1880-1881), First Baptist Church (1926-1927), Durham County Courthouse (1916), Durham Auditorium (Carolina Theatre, 1920s), Tempest Building (1894, 1905), National Guard Armory (1934-1937), United States Post Office (1934), Trust Building (1904), First National Bank Building (1913-1915), Mechanics and Farmers Bank (1921), Johnson Motor Company showroom (1927), Hill Building (1935), Snow Building (1933), and S. H. Kress store.It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977.On August 14, 2017 a 15-foot-high statue of an armed Confederate patriot was torn down in front of the 1916 Durham County Courthouse by demonstrators. The destruction of the statue followed the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia where one counter-demonstrator was killed.

The Carolina Theatre is a performing arts and cinema complex in downtown Durham, North Carolina. The facility is operated by a nonprofit organization named The Carolina Theatre of Durham, Inc. under a management agreement with the City of Durham, which owns the complex.

The Durham Performing Arts Center (often called the DPAC) opened November 30, 2008 as the largest performing arts center in the Carolinas at a cost of $48 million. The DPAC hosts over 200 performances a year including touring Broadway productions, high-profile concert and comedy events, family shows and the American Dance Festival. Operated under the direction of Nederlander and Professional Facilities Management (PFM), DPAC has twice been listed as the #1 performing arts organization in the Triangle region by the Triangle Business Journal. Construction of the DPAC was part of a larger plan to redevelop downtown Durham by the Capitol Broadcasting Company, and includes other nearby properties such as the American Tobacco Historic District, the Durham Bulls Athletic Park, and the studios of the CBC-owned Fox 50 TV station. Listed three times in the top 50 in Pollstar magazine's worldwide theater attendance ranking, in 2011 DPAC was the #1 U.S. Theater in the listing with a capacity under 4,000 and #4 ranked Theater among all U.S. Theaters. On August 16, 2016, the venue surpassed 3 million visitors since its opening.

The Confederate Soldiers Monument (popularly known as "The Boys Who Wore Gray") was a memorial to the soldiers from Durham County who fought for the Confederate States of America in the American Civil War. The statue was seriously damaged by protestors and removed from public view on August 14, 2017.

The Durham Arts Council Building is a cultural center located in downtown Durham, North Carolina within the Downtown Durham Historic District, however it is classified as a noncontributing building.

The American Tobacco Historic District is a historic tobacco factory complex and national historic district located in Durham, Durham County, North Carolina. The district encompasses 14 contributing buildings and three contributing structures built by the American Tobacco Company and its predecessors and successors from 1874 to the 1950s. Located in the district is the separately listed Italianate style W. T. Blackwell and Company building (1874-1880, c. 1904). Other notable contributing resources are the Romanesque Revival style Hill Warehouse (1900), Washington Warehouse (1902–07), the Lucky Strike Building (1901–02), and Reed Warehouse; Noell Building (c. 1930); Power Plant and Engine House (1929–39); and the Art Moderne style Fowler (1939) Strickland (1946) and Crowe (1953) buildings.It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2000 as the American Tobacco Company Manufacturing Plant.

Venable Tobacco Company Prizery and Receiving Room is a historic tobacco prizery located at Durham, Durham County, North Carolina. The prizery was built about 1930, and is a three-story, brick building. The trapezoidal shaped, one-story, concrete block receiving room was added in 1952. It is an example of "slow burn" masonry and wood factory construction. The prizery is located adjacent to the Venable Tobacco Company Warehouse, which collectively are the only structures that remain of a larger complex.It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2003.

Novus is a 27-story mixed-use tower under construction at 400 West Main Street in Downtown Durham, North Carolina. Expected to open in 2024, the building site is the former location of the South Bank building.

W.T. Blackwell & Co. Tobacco was a tobacco manufacturer in Durham, North Carolina. It was best known as the original producer of Bull Durham Tobacco, the first nationally marketed brand of tobacco products in the United States. The Blackwell tobacco factory in Durham, built in 1874, was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1977. It is included in the American Tobacco Company Manufacturing Plant historic district, and is now occupied by apartments.

The American Tobacco Company was a tobacco company founded in 1890 by J. B. Duke through a merger between a number of U.S. tobacco manufacturers including Allen and Ginter and Goodwin & Company. The company was one of the original 12 members of the Dow Jones Industrial Average in 1896. The American Tobacco Company dominated the industry by acquiring the Lucky Strike Company and over 200 other rival firms. Federal Antitrust action begun in 1907 broke the company into several major companies in 1911.The American Tobacco Company restructured itself in 1969, forming a holding company called American Brands, Inc., which operated American Tobacco as a subsidiary. American Brands acquired a variety of non-tobacco businesses during the 1970s and 1980s and sold its tobacco operations to Brown & Williamson in 1994. American Brands subsequently renamed itself "Fortune Brands".