Quote Originally Posted by Watson410 View Post
Can someone please explain to me why we need to build ANOTHER university on such a prime piece of land?!?! OCU is only 2 miles north.. Just because it's not downtown doesn't mean it can't be Oklahoma City's university..Last I heard OCU was working on getting back in the NCAA, Why would we need 2 NCAA schools in OKC? I've been looking at a few concept drawings for that area, and that idea is just absurd. Surely OKC can think of something alot better for that area. I like the high rise residential idea....maybe extend the canal...build the high rise on the canal. I don't know, i just think that would be a better start than another university.
Perhaps it’s because we associate universities too much with sports than with academia and cutting-edge research why people have this opinion. Let me clarify again: it would be good if OKC had a smaller university or institute (under 15K students) of technology with topnotch graduate programs. We’re not talking ITT, but more like Georgia Tech.

OKC is still in a position where it needs as much technology knowledge as it can get. The biosciences are not enough in today’s economy. OU and OSU are fine programs, but neither has the respect or standards as a GT, Carnegie Mellon, or Lehigh. And as I explained earlier, companies interested in the research being done at OU or OSU will locate close to campus in Stillwater or Norman, not OKC. For example, look at downtown: the companies leasing space at Presby Research Park are across Lincoln from the programs at the health sciences center.

It’s worth repeating: cutting edge research attracts world-class talent, which produces excellence in a certain field, which can usually be commercialized into a niche sector, which attracts money and suppliers/subsectors, which altogether create higher-paying jobs (usually) and diversifies the economy, not to mention the local reputation. To give it a sports analogy, ask yourself this: why did Roy Williams, Josh Heupel, Courtney Paris, or other out-of-staters with no connection to Oklahoma go to OU? Because the football and women’s basketball teams have national respect; talented people want to go where they can be challenged and collaborate with other talented people to make great things happen.

It’s ideal for this type of institution to locate downtown because it creates energy in terms of streetlife and commercial activity. There will be more young people to shape the neighborhood. Those startup companies will lease downtown office space, show their recruits downtown places, and go to downtown restaurants. Some of their employees will live in downtown housing. You’ll hear something besides business and law talk in downtown cafes. When visitors see a sign of a technology company downtown, they’ll realize we’re more than cowboys and roughnecks. It benefits the school and their offshoots because it’s attractive to recruits, and they are in close proximity to potential business/civic partners. And OKC still needs people magnets downtown.

In these respects, a school will do a lot more for downtown than a riverfront residential highrise. Housing is one part of the local economy I have faith in; if people cluster in an area, housing in all forms will follow. We do have some highrise space the Core to Shore renderings, but we still need to give people reasons to cluster downtown.