The tower is the city's finest Gothic Revival office building and one of its first high-rises. It was connected with the Norwood Motoramp Garage (c. 1927) on the same block, a precursor to today's common formula of an office tower with an attached parking garage. Possibly inspired by the Gothic features of the Chicago Tribune Tower (1925) in Chicago by Hood and Howells and New York City's Woolworth Building (1913) by Cass Gilbert, the Gothic style used on the Norwood was already giving way to Art Deco and Moderne by the time of its completion.