Height and Density in the Core

[stlokc]

An exchange I had with SagerMichael got me thinking just now about density and height.

Here's a thought exercise, and I'm curious how it will go because it might be a good barometer of how highly people value density and the different priorities downtown.

Apart from everything currently vacant and on the drawing board development-wise, assume that in the next 10 years, downtown OKC will be able to absorb:
50 new floors of office construction
150 new floors of residential construction

Where would you put it if you were the Sim City master?

I'll start.

COX SITE:
(1) 40 story office
(1) 30 story residential
(2) 20 story residential

4th & EK GAYLORD SITE:
(1) 20 story residential
(1) 10 story office

CORE TO SHORE/PARKSIDE:
(3) 10 story residential

MIDTOWN:
(4) 5 story residential

FILM ROW:
(1) 5 story residential

DEEP DEUCE/BRICKTOWN:
(1) 5 story residential

[jonny d]

Where are all of those people going to come from? In 20 years, there won't be enough people to support those residential towers. Most people move to the suburbs when they have the chance. I think we could use a 20-30 story residential tower, but for now, I do not see the demand in 10-20 years. But I would love it if OKC hit a growth boom, not quite to Austin or PDX levels, but a nice boom with some large relocations or offices being opened here to possible help that growth.

[hoya]

Apart from the occasional vanity project, like Devon Tower, the finances don't really make sense for a bunch of skyscrapers to get built in OKC. Land costs need to be at a certain level to make it economically feasible, and they just aren't there yet. Even with our current high prices downtown, it still makes more sense to buy up a big chunk of parking lot and build something like the Steelyard or the West Village.

Land prices are low enough right now that OG&E was able to buy the Stage Center lot (and yeah they got a sweetheart deal that was probably below market value) and just sit on it. Right now there are a lot of property owners who are just content to sit on their butts and hope that somebody comes along and throws money at them. Some probably have unrealistic expectations of how much their particular piece of land is worth. I think we are making a lot of progress in gradually filling in some of the vacant lots in and around downtown, but we've got quite a bit left to go.

I think we need at least another 10-15 years of gradual infill before more skyscrapers start to make economic sense. Now we might get the occasional luxury or vanity project, but that's dependent on somebody splurging because they want to stand out. As a matter of pure dollars and cents, it still makes more sense to build 4-5 stories for everything.

As far as the Cox Center goes, I think we need to put that on the back burner until we have all our ducks in a row. It won't hurt anything to let our existing office vacancies fill up for another 10 years or so, and to have a master plan that really makes sense before tearing down the existing structure. I agree that what goes on that site needs to be a show-stopper. I think we need about 4 or 5 large companies on board to take up space in an agreed upon design, with residential plans and a retail component as well. There needs to be a level of public/private coordination that our city has never really attempted before. The whole thing needs to make the 4 tower OG&E proposal look small.

[stlokc]

Johnny D and Hoya,
I appreciate what you are both saying. The point of my theoretical question was not "what do you think will happen" but more a survey of what people would design if given the chance, what are the priorities for development.

I have been on record in other threads saying that my "preference" would be to build multiple low-rise (Steelyard, West Village) projects in Midtown to fill all these ridiculous parking lots before going to high rise construction, and obviously cost will drive everything. But in looking at the trends, if OKC grows at the same rate from 2020-2030 that it did from 2010-2016, that will be an additional 200,000 people in the metro area. I think that this might be the decade that demographic shifts could make a couple of high-rise projects finally make sense. I don't think 150 floors of residential development, however it's spread out, is that far out of the realm of reason - that's probably not even 10,000 of that 200,000 population gain.

But that's the point of the thread. To talk about it.

[DenverPoke]

I agree that 150 floors sounds like a lot but really isn’t that many units. For comparison sake I reviewed what Denver had under construction on the residential side in December of last year downtown. 271 floors across 29 projects ranging from 5-29 floors, this encompassed about 6,500 units. So I have little doubt OKC could absorb 150 floors in the next 10 years.

[HOT ROD]

We just need somebody to take the plunge in OKC to prove the market exists. I honestly can’t understand what’s taking so long when there exists a captive audience for this product - NBA and G-league players.

Im not saying all of them want to be in high rises, but wouldn’t it be nice as a NBA player brginning your career to RENT a high rise apartment downtown? You’re most likely going to want short term digs as an NBA player aside from the franchise players (Westbrook, George, Adams) who likely will remain here, there’s a great chance Patterson and Singler won’t/wouldn’t. Being that young you’d probably want to live where the action is in flashy digs. There’s no better place in the state than downtown OKC in a new highrise.

Just baffles me that there isn’t already 3 or 4 15+ floor (6 units per floor) modern highrise rent towers. I know condo towers are a different animal and we aren’t there yet land price wise, but we have/need ca-che that highrise living provides - surprised developers aren’t going after that NBA money.

[HOT ROD]

6 units per floor, 14 floors above a lobby/retail floor = 84 units. I think OKC could handle such a rental tower now, with the top two floor going for $3500+ per month per unit and the rest of the tower priced to the market with the idea of living in the same building with such celebrity.

I seriously thing downtown highrise RENTAL could be a success now with the “land too cheap to build highrise condo” + relatively low financing + no luxury highrise RENTAL product in the most urban area of the state with OJC having an unproven market of transient young newly wealthy urbanites or those from larger cities.

This product is not available in OKC, I only wish there were someone to take the plunge - if I had it, I would.

[DenverPoke]

6 units per floor, 14 floors above a lobby/retail floor = 84 units. I think OKC could handle such a rental tower now, with the top two floor going for $3500+ per month per unit and the rest of the tower priced to the market with the idea of living in the same building with such celebrity.

I seriously thing downtown highrise RENTAL could be a success now with the “land too cheap to build highrise condo” + relatively low financing + no luxury highrise RENTAL product in the most urban area of the state with OJC having an unproven market of transient young newly wealthy urbanites or those from larger cities.

This product is not available in OKC, I only wish there were someone to take the plunge - if I had it, I would.

I'm not sure something like that would pencil out right now, but I am surprised someone hasn't developed something along the lines of One Light in KC. 25 floors/315 units. I think OKC is ready for it.

[ChrisHayes]

Here's something I don't get. Cleveland, Ohio, which has been bleeding population since the 1950s is getting new high rise buildings including a potential high rise apartment building. Meanwhile, OKC and the metro as a whole continue to grow but it's hard for us to get a new high rise. I'm glad we got Devon, and BOK, but I can't see us not being able to absorb even just one 20-30 story apartment building.

[stlokc]

Here's something I don't get. Cleveland, Ohio, which has been bleeding population since the 1950s is getting new high rise buildings including a potential high rise apartment building. Meanwhile, OKC and the metro as a whole continue to grow but it's hard for us to get a new high rise. I'm glad we got Devon, and BOK, but I can't see us not being able to absorb even just one 20-30 story apartment building.

St. Louis, MO, whose metro area has grown at a whopping 1% this decade and about 3% last decade has a 35 story apartment building under construction in an urban neighborhood close to downtown. It has a 20-25 (I forget) story apartment building under construction in the heart of downtown. And Clayton (first ring suburb) just got a 25 story one and a 30 story one is on the drawing board.

Again, I want to stress that I personally think we should be focusing on infill, even if it means putting off a high rise. But St. Louis is seeing lots of those projects as well.

[hoya]

We probably could support a few residential high rises, if the 4-5 story complexes weren't so easy to build. The biggest problem that OKC has in getting those high rises is that there's still a ton of vacant land throughout the core. As long as there's an option for "easier construction, make just as much money", people will take it.

[HOT ROD]

but there are/should be height requirements for FSR downtown. THIS dictates height.

Im with stl in that i want more infill throughout the core, but I see OKC is missing the boat if you will on an unserved market - why aren't they doing both rental highrises in/near the CBD and condo mid-rise further away but still downtown?

There's no reason why the REICO lands shouldn't become at least two 25+ floor high-rises, apartment towers. Command the top rents of the city/state since that's the best most prime land. Then let the market dictate other highrises based on the 'exposed' demand AND FSR requirements by the downtown development committee.

WE need to dictate what gets built in the city not developers. They will make $$ regardless once the market offers the product. A 100 unit rental tower somewhere downtown is the catalyst IMO, relatively cheap to build on a small lot - command high prices for the upper half and allow the market to fill the bottom. Put in 7-11 and other retail on the lobby floor - and here's a complete product that doesn't exist in Oklahoma City.

I also still can't understand why there's no urban 7-11 convenience-type stores in/near the CBD.

[Plutonic Panda]

We need more 50+ story towers and ideally a couple 70+ story ones mixed in with about 4-7 more 50+ story towers would really make a nice skyline for OKC. Anything under 50 stories and I’m not too impressed with. I’ll take what I can get, however.

I just wish we wouldn’t see these skyscrapers with large podiums and more density.

[mugofbeer]

l agree someone with vision, money and guts just needs to take the plunge. l think a hi-mid to hi-rise along the new park and next to the river would be a great success if not built for the super-wealthy only.

[hoya]

We need more 50+ story towers and ideally a couple 70+ story ones mixed in with about 4-7 more 50+ story towers would really make a nice skyline for OKC. Anything under 50 stories and I’m not too impressed with. I’ll take what I can get, however.

I just wish we wouldn’t see these skyscrapers with large podiums and more density.

Hey, if it's not at least the size of the Burj Khalifa, it's just a waste of time, huh Plupan?

[Plutonic Panda]

^^^ you said it not me haha

I love the Burj Khalifa, but it’s not good for dense urban cores. Put it on NWE or Memorial and I’d love it.

[hoya]

My own view of what is reasonable to expect for OKC in the next 25 years or so (if I were Sim City master), is one really dense set of high rises, a bunch of mid-rises, and lots of low level infill.

The infill is the easiest. I'd add another dozen or so developments like the Steelyard, the Edge, or LEVEL. Big apartment blocks 4-5 stories high aimed at 20-somethings fresh out of college. They're profitable right now, each one eats up a big chunk of empty land, and they'll probably form the basis of the Strawberry Fields area and the Producers Coop area. Three or four could go in each of those developments. One or two more can go in Bricktown, and two or three more in the area north and east of Automobile Alley. A couple more could go in the area of Midtown and South of St Anthony, as well. We could also add in another 15-20 or so smaller office buildings like the Monarch or Broadway Park. These are 5 or 6 story buildings that hold a small company, and they have a much smaller footprint than the big apartment blocks.

OKC will probably develop something like the above infill with or without me acting as Sim City guy. I'd also add that we could use about 500 more townhomes in the core. That's about 3x the size of The Hill. Some would be in Strawberry Fields or the Coop site, but others would fill in small empty spaces. Townhomes will appeal to a different demographic than the apartment blocks, and will get older more financially secure folks downtown.

For midrises, I'm talking about buildings in the range of about 10 stories high. We should be able to support another 20-30 of these without a problem. Some of them could be residential, like the proposed Elliott, some of them could be hotels like the Hampton Inn and Hilton Garden Inn in Bricktown. These will become more economically viable as a lot of the open land gets used up. After all, some construction going on right now is at this level, and that's with a lot of open surface lots. I'd expect to see more developments of this size on the streetcar path first. These will probably naturally occur as well.

Finally we get to everybody's favorite, the high rises. I'd say that within the next 25 years, OKC could probably support 6 "real" high rises, and 3-4 "boutique" high rises. To define those terms, I'll say that a high rise is something 20 stories or more. Something that height would have a significant presence in our downtown skyline, adding mass and extending it out further. While I'd love something that can challenge the Devon tower for supremacy, I don't think that's in the cards for a long time. Best we can realistically hope for is something between Chase and Devon. 600-700 feet would make Devon less of an outlier and look like it fits in with our city better. I'll define a "real" high rise as something built to maximize square footage on its lot by adding height. A "boutique" high rise is a building that uses small floor plates to stretch itself vertically.

I'd say that in the next two decades, we could reasonably hope for 4 more office buildings in the 20-30 story range. Say an extra 100 stories of office space downtown. We could do more if somebody could convince PayCom to move from the suburbs, but that doesn't seem likely right now. Maybe we could push one of those towers to be the one that bridges the gap between Devon and the others, but that would probably reduce the height of one or more of the other three. We could also get a residential tower or two, something like the Regency that holds a relatively significant number of tenants. Maybe they could have some hotel space as well to push them higher. The success of the First National Center is really going to be key to getting something like this built.

Since we've got a relatively small number of high rises, I think they should be concentrated around the Myriad Gardens. Most should go on the Cox Center site, and that requires a lot of work by the city to coordinate developers. I think that's a very important step for OKC, to be able to pull off a project of that magnitude. It doesn't have to happen all at once, this is something that could be spaced out over the course of a decade. But it needs to happen the right way.

Then you've got the boutique high rises. An example would be the Astoria in Houston. https://www.har.com/astoria/highrise_155

It's 28 stories tall, and it has less than 70 condos in it. I think it has about 3 condos per floor. Something like this could definitely add height to our skyline, even though it would be pretty slender. I think we could support 3 or 4 towers like this, and the best spot for them is around the Scissortail Park. You don't really need that many people to buy into a project like that to have it be economically successful. The prices on the Houston tower appear to be comparable to The Hill here, so I think you could appeal to the same type of buyer, who would appreciate living in an exclusive high rise tower fronting the park.

So that's what I'd do if you put me in charge of downtown OKC development.

[OKCRT]

St. Louis, MO, whose metro area has grown at a whopping 1% this decade and about 3% last decade has a 35 story apartment building under construction in an urban neighborhood close to downtown. It has a 20-25 (I forget) story apartment building under construction in the heart of downtown. And Clayton (first ring suburb) just got a 25 story one and a 30 story one is on the drawing board.

Again, I want to stress that I personally think we should be focusing on infill, even if it means putting off a high rise. But St. Louis is seeing lots of those projects as well.

Yes but Stl metro is bigger than OKC and Tulsa combined and not many areas to build a bunch of 4-5 story building downtown. But still, their pop. is close to 3 mil. in the metro. and I heard there are quite a few people moving back into the city. And Clayton area has a lot of money.

[HOT ROD]

im not sure population has anything to do with building construction in the central city. ...

OKC is on the same playing field as STL as far as NEW construction should be concerned since OKC is a booming/growing city. YES STL is larger but Austin is smaller than STL yet has growth in highrises, shall we name more cities even some smaller than OKC who are adding more than OKC?

[hoya]

im not sure population has anything to do with building construction in the central city. ...

OKC is on the same playing field as STL as far as NEW construction should be concerned since OKC is a booming/growing city. YES STL is larger but Austin is smaller than STL yet has growth in highrises, shall we name more cities even some smaller than OKC who are adding more than OKC?

It's not so much population as it is empty space. You know what St Louis doesn't have? A giant empty area where the Producers Coop used to be, as well as all the Core 2 Shore space.

[bombermwc]

STL has miles of abandoned crap near downtown and Austin has traffic to rival cities twice its size.

What OKC has is an insane sprawl that focussed building highrises outside of the core for a few decades. Imaging if the stuff on Memorial and NWXway were downtown. Our skyline would look drastically different and a LOT more full. Austin also didn't really start taking off until about 20 years ago. You can thank the tech boom, and significantly Dell, for spurring that. I realize Dell is in Round Rock, but it helped create an atmosphere in the city that spurred a lot of tech that in return spurred a lot of other business. In OKC, it was Oil and Gas, hence Devon. Keep in mind that we've lost some of those businesses to consolidation (Kerr McGee, and Sandridge isn't exactly working out well). If we want to see another big push to build here, then we're going to need something new on the business side and not just organic growth to push us.

[HOT ROD]

I'm not too upset that OKC has the NW Business district skyline - actually this makes OKC look like a much bigger city than it is in that very few mid-size cities have two or more highrise skylines.

But one thing - I am glad the highrise focus is back on downtown and hope it stays for a while or at least a 8-1 ratio in favor of downtown.