{"id":126175,"date":"2026-01-09T04:41:45","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T04:41:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/126175\/"},"modified":"2026-01-09T04:41:45","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T04:41:45","slug":"city-of-bakersfield-eyes-former-bank-of-america-building","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/126175\/","title":{"rendered":"City of Bakersfield eyes former Bank of America building"},"content":{"rendered":"

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) \u2014 The Bakersfield skyline is complimented by rust-colored buildings, the neon sign of the Padre Hotel and a large rectangular building on Truxtun Avenue. The city of Bakersfield is now eyeing the Truxtun Tower, formally called the Bank of America building.<\/p>\n

Erwin Property LLC owns the large property and the M.D. Atkinson company manages it.<\/p>\n

The tower has been a part of downtown Bakersfield for decades. About 100 years ago, as Bakersfield began developing in the 1920s, the then city council wanted to create a community hotel thanks to funding coming in from local investors.<\/p>\n

The new spot of hospitality \u2014 the El Tejon Hotel \u2014 opened in May 1926.<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/p>\n

Photo courtesy of the Kern County Museum<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/p>\n

Photo courtesy of the Kern County Museum<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/p>\n

Photo courtesy of the Kern County Museum<\/p>\n

Its opening kicked off more hotel construction with the Padre Hotel finishing two years later.<\/p>\n

Fast forwarding 40 years, Bank of America worked in collaboration with the Bakersfield City Council to demolish the hotel and replace it with a multi-storied building.<\/p>\n

But the construction of this large undertaking didn\u2019t come without controversy. In 1970, a young man was injured while playing in the building\u2019s construction site.<\/p>\n

In 1974, the building was completed and functioned as a branch for the national company before its closure in 2024.<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/p>\n

Photo courtesy of the Kern County Museum<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/p>\n

Photo courtesy of the Kern County Museum<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/p>\n

Photo courtesy of the Kern County Museum<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/p>\n

Photo courtesy of the Kern County Museum<\/p>\n

The current City Council discussed the possible purchase of the Bank of America building first in 2025 in a five-hour closed session<\/a> with no action taken at the time. But that purchase may soon become a reality.<\/p>\n

In Wednesday\u2019s closed session meeting, the City Council held a conference with the city manager Christian Clegg and a representative from ASU Commercial Real Estate company.
The reason for the meeting, according to the agenda, was to negotiate \u201cprice and terms of payment for purchase.\u201d<\/p>\n

Watch \u2018After Sunrise\u2019 on KGET+; Click to learn how to get KGET+ on your smart TV devices <\/a><\/p>\n

We reached out to the city and ASU Commercial Real Estate for more information on the negotiations, including costs and how the building would be used by the city.<\/p>\n

17 News has not received a response as of Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/p>\n

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KGET 17 News. <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) \u2014 The Bakersfield skyline is complimented by rust-colored buildings, the neon sign of the Padre…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":126176,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[151,153,152,30748,51783],"class_list":["post-126175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield-headlines","tag-bakersfield-news","tag-bank-of-america","tag-kern-county-museum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126175\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/126176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}