City leaders hope to learn from Denver

By Steve Lackmeyer
Business Writer

If you're looking for some of the most powerful and influential people in Oklahoma City today, you might want to hop a flight to Denver.
The Greater Oklahoma City Chamber organized a trip for the city's elite to look at what can be learned in the Mile-High City. The two-day trip was scheduled to include top executives Clay Bennett, Burns Hargis, Larry Nichols, Meg Salyer, David Rainbolt, Brad Krieger, David Thompson, Mark Funke, and Lance Benham. Major downtown developers and real estate brokers were to be represented as well, including William Canfield, Anthony McDermid and Gerald Gamble. Don Porter, the superintendent of Oklahoma City Public Schools was scheduled for the trip, as was Councilman Larry McAtee and Greater Oklahoma City Chamber president Roy Williams. And I'm thinking it would be fun to listen in to the in-flight conversations between Williams, City Manager Jim Couch, Mayor Mick Cornett, and SMG's Gary Desjardins. All four are heavy hitters in the city's convention business.

While I'm at it, wouldn't it be great to also be a silent witness to any potential tour of Pepsi Center — the Denver arena that is said to be the sort of venue that Bennett would love to see built for his Seattle SuperSonics. Alas, I wasn't invited. But it's on this sort of trip that ideas are hatched and visions take shape. So what ideas might we see brought back to Oklahoma City? Having visited Denver two years ago, I was amazed to see such a clean, orderly downtown in one of the nation's major cities. We already know why folks like Bennett and Cornett might be interested in visiting Pepsi Center.

And Denver's hosting of the 2008 Democratic National Convention makes for an interesting case study in making it to the big leagues — for the folks interested in advancing Oklahoma City from a tier three to a tier two convention city. Hopefully our hometown delegation got to visit 16{+t}{+h} Street both early and late in the day. Wake up early enough and one can witness downtown Denver's business improvement district at work, cleaning sidewalks, immediately removing graffiti and gently urging vagrants to find other shelter. The same street is home to an intriguing shuttle operation that links downtown Denver's hotels, convention center, and Larimer Square and LoDo entertainment districts. The shuttles operate like an elevator that is always moving — no matter where you are along 16{+t}{+h}, you are assured of getting a quick ride along a free shuttle that will take you in either direction. Compare that operation to downtown Oklahoma City's Oklahoma Spirit trolleys, which charge 25 cents a passenger and go nowhere fast in the name of trying to hit every corner of downtown. Imagine instead a shuttle operation like the one in Denver that would take over Sheridan Avenue and travel back and forth between Stage Center and the east fringe of Bricktown.

More than 20 years ago, a similar trip to San Antonio resulted in civic leaders bringing back dreams of a downtown Oklahoma City "riverwalk.” And history was made when former Mayor Ron Norick toured Indianapolis 17 years ago seeking to discover why the city beat his hometown in the battle to land a new United Airlines maintenance plant.

Will anything be learned from Denver?

Maybe we'll find out a decade from now.