Larry Nichols suggestions could alter downtown...
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Expert’s suggestions could alter downtown
BY STEVE LACKMEYER
Published: April 7, 2009
Downtown Oklahoma City stands at a crossroads, and no less than Devon Energy Chief Executive Officer Larry Nichols sees what’s ahead as significant as what has transpired this past decade.
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Part of that change involves Nichols himself. As part of the deal to build a $750 million, 54-story headquarters, Devon required the city to set up a tax increment fund to transform downtown’s streets, sidewalks and parks.
Listening to Nichols is like hearing a man who has fully taken in and embraced the latest in urban design and planning.
And part of that thinking involves the need to balance pedestrian needs with those of motorists. And who is better to bring into the discussion than Jeff Speck, a renowned author and consultant sought out on such matters by cities nationwide?
Speck is saying some things that might not be welcome by all — but bares some discussion. And there are plenty of civic leaders who wonder if one of Speck’s concerns about the proposed new headquarters for the Greater Oklahoma City Chamber should be discussed more before it becomes a reality.
Design questioned
Speck doesn’t think the design is bad. He simply questions whether a plaza separating the building from the E.K. Gaylord and an open surface parking lot facing NW 4 is ideal for creating a good environment for pedestrians. Speck notes traditional cities — ones that catered to pedestrians — had buildings with "weird shapes” to fill their footprints (such as Rand Elliott’s offices at NE 5 and Harrison).
The chamber building’s design is partially dictated by a decision from city engineers that the intersection of NW 4, Broadway and E.K. Gaylord couldn’t be redesigned. They insist E.K. Gaylord must hook directly into Broadway to ensure a smooth flow of traffic and have rejected suggestions of recreating a traditional grid intersection that would reconnect NE 3 with Robert S Kerr Avenue and allow the chamber to build a building with a more traditional urban setback from the street.
But what if the city engineers and their traffic consultants are wrong? Speck thinks they made the wrong call in not making all of Walker Avenue two-way during recent reconstruction, and his suggestion to make all downtown streets two-way has drawn cheers from those attending his presentations.
City Hall has a lot to be proud of, and they’ve got a track record of public-private ventures that includes redevelopment of the Skirvin hotel, development in Bricktown, the Dell campus on the Oklahoma River, recovery after the 1995 Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building bombing and various housing projects downtown.
But history has proved the city staff wrong when it came to whether the Bricktown Canal should be broken into three segments or when it came to tearing down the Walnut Avenue Bridge.
Jeff Speck says the chamber building design isn’t bad; he simply says it’s not right.
I’m not suggesting that anyone involved in these current discussions doesn’t have the best of intentions. But one has to wonder how further examination of future developments can do anything but assure that today’s decisions won’t be regretted in the future. What if Jeff Speck is right and the engineers are wrong?
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Originally Posted by BDP
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