Construction Crane Count

[Praedura]

There is now a crane on the site of the old Labor Department building on 40th and Lincoln, which is being renovated. I'm not sure who will be occupying it. It's this property - 4001 N. Lincoln Boulevard, Oklahoma City, OK, 73105 - Institutional/Governmental Property - Off-Market on LoopNet.com

Interesting. I couldn't find a thread for this on the board. Do you know much about this -- i.e. is this a major or just minor renovation? Anyway, I'll add it to the list.

Picture of building (from the link):

[Praedura]

In the photo below, there are actually two things that make sense to consider cranes. One (upper left, black boom), is obvious to all of us I would guess. The machine next to it is an auger, a specialized piece of equipment that bores holes in the ground for concrete piers. It is more of a derrick. Since it doesn't lift materials, I would not consider that a crane. The next item over, with the truck cab and the bright green on the boom, is a concrete pump. This takes mud delivered by a truck and places it. Again, not a lifting device, other than the fact that it lifts its own boom. The one other machine that I might call a crane would be the red forklift truck in the foreground. The boom on that machine extends and effectively makes it a crane.

All of these devices have some similarities, and at times are casually called cranes, but this thread asks how many construction cranes are on the skyline and attempts to answer. If Metro Sign comes down and spends half an afternoon lifting a sign into place with their sign truck, does that count? Or if OGE uses a cherry picker or a scissor lift to change street light bulbs? It seems the spirit of this thread was to count things that the construction industry might refer to as construction cranes, on our skyline. If that is the case, I see one construction crane in this picture.

Oh... THAT project. Ok, well I'll confess that this was one site where I just kind of threw up my hands and counted every tall construction vehicle in the photos as a crane.
Because I wasn't really sure what the heck they were. I figured someone would come along and correct me, if necessary. Ok, sure, I'll happily concede that I over-reached on that particular one
and will push the count back down to 1 for the elementary school. Although I suspect that for a project of this size, more cranes will be forthcoming in the future.

As to the philosophical arguments... would I count a construction crane erecting a sign or fixing a street light, etc. little things like that? ABSOLUTELY NOT! Besides the ridiculous
element, for sheer practical reasons I could never keep up with every dinky activity like that even if I wanted to. But, of course, that kind of shenanigans would turn the whole list into a joke.
I really am trying to be serious about this (whether it appears so or not).

The whole idea, naturally, is to attempt to capture the scope of activity in a city that is approaching (if not already in) a construction boom. Counting cranes is but one way of
achieving that goal, and an arbitrary one at that. But it does reflect fairly well, I think, what is going on during a boom time.

My original idea was to count only cranes for either new construction or extensive renovations of an existing building. Something that most anyone would readily agree represent serious activity.
I somewhat cheated on that notion by including the Santa Fe Parking Garage, because it's only cosmetic and not a renovation. But because that building is large and so prominent in the downtown area, and the work being done on it does actually reflect a city remaking itself, it seemed to fit the spirit of the list anyway.

Thanks for the clarification though. I'm hardly the most qualified person to be making this list, as I don't live or work downtown and do not have a construction background. I just thought that it would be an interesting thing to do, so I jumped in.

[Praedura]

Latest update:

3 ... Hilton Garden Inn (Bricktown)
1 ... River inlet by Land Run Park (Bricktown)
1 ... Holiday Inn Express (Bricktown)
2 ... Kevin Durant Restaurant (Bricktown)
2 ... Aloft Hotel (Deep Deuce)
2 ... Maywood Apartments (Deep Deuce)
3 ... The Edge Apartments (Midtown)
1 ... Osler Building/Ambassador Hotel (Midtown)
1 ... New SandRidge Building (CBD)
2 ... Main Street Parking Garage (CBD)
1 ... Santa Fe Parking Garage (CBD)
1 ... John W. Rex Elementary School (Film Row)
1 ... Lincoln Plaza/Healthcare Authority Building (Lincoln Corridor)
1 ... Department of Labor Building (Lincoln Corridor)
[hr][/hr]
22 Total

[TechArch]

Chickasaw Nation is renovating this building.

[Urbanized]

Hey Praedura, I appreciate the effort and was only giving my two cents on what constituted "construction cranes" in the truest sense. I'm definitely not an expert on large commercial construction either. I've been around plenty of jobs, but almost exclusively in support roles (materials sales, deliveries, etc.), or as an observer/cheerleader (in marketing and PR roles, or as a friend or colleague of someone who actually did call the shots), and much of what I know is just from osmosis. Most of the commercial jobs I have been involved in as a decision-maker of any type have been very small. Would love to see a real expert in commercial construction weigh in.

[HOT ROD]

And that's it! That's covers the current list except for the Lincoln Plaza site, which I don't have any photos for.

Thanks for the tour Praedura! Much appreciated from this expat.

[pickles]

Crane is gone from the Department of Labor site.