Who was behind the original Pei Plan?

[Pete]

Reading the article on the Century Center made my stomach churn a little, as it made me realize that the city still has huge, gaping wounds from the massive bulldozzing done in the 60's and 70's.

I know the city commissioned architect I.M. Pei to come up with the master plan, but who were the civic leaders behind it?

[Patrick]

I think okcpulse has quite a bit of information on this. I'll let him chime in here.

[Pete]

I know OKC wasn't the only city to embark on a big 'urban renewal' project, as many others were anxious to garner the ample federal funding that was being made available at the time.

However, I'm also quite certain no other city destroyed such a large percentage of it's urban core.

It's hard to imagine what they were thinking... Razing a full 50 blocks in a modestly-sized city!

[Pete]

Here's a couple of interesting articles from the Oklahoman Archives:

From Sept. 13, 1965



From Decemeber 19, 1970

[Pete]

Here's a couple of pictures from the mid-60's:




Caption: Future Vista looking east on Park Ave. is part of the downtown renewal plan reviewed Monday night at an unusual Urban Renewal Authority meeting with the city council, planning commission and staff and consulting specialists. Part of the initial project 1-A, this drawing includes the modernized Medical Arts Building, a 40-story prestige office tower and (at far end) a Skirvin Hotel addition.

[John]

There are some interesting stories and renderings in some books located in the Oklahoma room of the downtown library.

[Pete]

I remember seeing some books and reports at the OU architectural library as well.


Thanks for the tip on the downtown library... Next time I'm in town I'll definitely check it out.

[swake]

Why did so much of the plan never get built?

The plan, like so many, looks good on paper. At least Tulsa's massive Williams Center project was only like 10 square blocks, nothing like the 50 talked about here.

[Pete]

My personal opinion is that they just cleared too much out -- literally cut the heart out of the city.

Then, it took them much longer to get much new development in place and by that time most businesses had moved off to the suburbs. They could never really establish momentum because things happened so slowly and there was really never the perception that things had turned the corner.

In the mean time, OKC continued to build freeways and allowed completely unchecked urban sprawl. If they had undertaken a big redevelopment plan and at the same time limited growth in other areas, they might have had a little more success.

[okcpulse]

Reading the article on the Century Center made my stomach churn a little, as it made me realize that the city still has huge, gaping wounds from the massive bulldozzing done in the 60's and 70's.

I know the city commissioned architect I.M. Pei to come up with the master plan, but who were the civic leaders behind it?

MalibuSooner, you touched on an interesting project that sent Oklahoma City spiraling well into the late 1980s. The original plan was put together and implemented by the city council and former mayor James H. Norick, who was mayor of Oklahoma City during the late 1960's. The driving force behind the I.M. Pei Plan, however, was the Oklahoma City Urban Renewal Authority, who was formed in the mid 1960's to oversee a quickly dying downtown. The district's own shopping stores closed up and moved out to the suburbs as well as Shepherd Mall, completed in 1964.

The Pei Plan was actually a master plan that was to be built in phases. It set standards for future downtown developers to follow. Unfortunately, the 1960s was not an environment-friendly decade, and little foresight went into any planning.

What cause the Pei Plan to fail was the hastiness of OCURA to clear land for future development, even if it were never to occur. The wrecking ball was scene on dozens of sight making way for 'future' development well into the early 1980s. Oklahoma City was in luck as hundreds of thousands of square feet in office space were built between 1979 and 1985.

Former Mayor Patience Latting allowed OCURA to constantly extend the deadline for the developer from Dallas who was responsoble for getting the project off the ground. The finial deadline was given over a decade after the initial proposal... in 1985. By then, Oklahoma City's economy was a wreck, and the boat had sailed on.

But the Galleria would have been a cannibal in its own right. Artist renderings of the structure show a cold large-column structure that looks like something you'd see out of... well... the 1960s. The mall definitely would have needed several makeovers.

But others... a larger lake for the botanical garden, multiple residential high-rise towers (one was to be built where the Chase Tower now stands) and a downtown theme park never materialized because the I.M. Pei Plan, funded by bonds, simply ran out of money. The oil bust finally killed off the slowly dying plan. The essentials-only leadership of the early 1980s was simply there to keep the city running, and the Pei Plan was history.

We'll never know what Oklahoma City would have been like had the plan been successful. There are so many factors, especially the culture of the time, that stood in the plan's way. The entire project wasn't a good one to begin with. Too many international-style structures can also kill a downtown. There is just no eye-appeal. But the inaction of OCURA and lack of foresight both contributed the failure of the plan.

[shane453]

I think the second rendering shows what would have been built where Chase is. The rendering looks 10x better than Chase...

[Pete]

Thanks for that perspective, pulse.

Vincent Corroza was the Dallas developer you mentioned. I followed all that very closely as I was in college at the time (late 70's and early 80's) and was really into city planning and OKC in particular. I remember going by their offices in the 1 Galleria office building to see their model and talk to them about the development.

In addition to the two office buidlings that were actually built by Carroza, he had tentative plans for a Trusthouse Forte hotel to be built where the office buiding is now just south of 1 Galleria. Also, a 50-story building was planned for where the library is now, with an enclosed mall filling in the rest of the block with the parking garage underneath.

[Steve]

Not to be too self promotional here, but...

Jack Money and I have spent six years delving into this topic, delving into archives, doing interviews, and we have a book coming out within the next two months that goes in depth on how the Pei Plan was started, what happened, and then what happened with MAPS and Bricktown.

I hope it will answer a lot of your questions.

-Steve Lackmeyer

[Pete]

Steve, that's awesome.

Please let us know when it's out as I know many here would be interested.

[The Old Downtown Guy]

Not to be too self promotional here, but...

Jack Money and I have spent six years delving into this topic, delving into archives, doing interviews, and we have a book coming out within the next two months . . .

Steve,

Is that the book that Jim Tolbert has been involved in publishing? Looking forward very much to seeing it in print. Let us know when the first book signing party is scheduled for.

[Steve]

Yes. We are wrapping up the book design now and hope to go to the printer very soon.
-Steve

[jbrown84]

Great. I'm excited to read the book, Steve.

[John]

I'll be there at the release party. Keep us updated, Steve.

[floater]

We'll never know what Oklahoma City would have been like had the plan been successful.

One of the towers may have looked like this:


I.M. Pei also developed a much-heralded urban renewal-based plan for Cleveland, called Erieview. This was the only tower to come out of it. But Cleveland was lucky enough to have the mall actually built (albeit in the 1980s), called...The Galleria at Erieview. But as we all know, retail success is fleeting. The food court still generates decent crowds, but the retailers are a shadow of what they were when it opened. A new investor with a good reputation has recently come in, though.



A birds-eye view of the mall. Look familiar?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erieview_Tower

[John]

Woulda been nice to have both of those in OKC.

[Patrick]

Looks a lot like the Crystal Bridge.

[floater]

Looks a lot like the Crystal Bridge.

Yeah, glass geometric shapes seem to be Pei's trademark.