The tower was originally conceived in the late 1970s by Frank E. McKinney, Jr., chairman of American Fletcher Corporation, the holding company for American Fletcher National Bank and Trust Company (AFNB), which at the time was Indiana's largest financial institution, to allow for consolidation and expansion of his company's headquarters. Land was slowly being assembled for the building, with several predecessor structures along Ohio Street and Pennsylvania Street being demolished in those years and the early 1980s to clear the way for what McKinney hoped would soon be Indiana's tallest office tower.