Broad Street merchants created the Central National Bank to serve the retail district. The Broad Street financial concern specifically conceived of the Art Deco tower as a challenge to the skyscraper monopoly of the Main Street financial district. This building and the Medical College of Virginia West Hospital (
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) are the only stepped-back skyscrapers in the city. The building is one of the great twentieth-century landmarks of Virginia architecture. The exterior is composed in two parts with a tower toward Broad Street (which recalls Eliel Saarinen's entry in the Chicago Tribune competition of 1922) and a shorter tail to the rear. The large vaulted banking lobby is a lavish Art Deco exercise in nearly pristine condition.