BOK Park Plaza

[soonerwilliam]

Bus station has started coming down today!

[ourulz2000]

Any idea what this building will look like at night?

[BDP]

One thing that gives me hope: the parking garages could always be demolished in the future for a higher and better use

I think many are of the opinion that parking garages are the highest and best use for downtown real estate.

[Bellaboo]

Any idea what this building will look like at night?

In the middle pictures at the Top of the Page, there is a night time picture that shows the crown lit up. Click on the picture for a larger scale - it says 'Night time Presence'.
It will look good.

[Teo9969]

I think many are of the opinion that parking garages are the highest and best use for downtown real estate.

Right now, sure.

When Downtown OKC has 50,000 residents, a majority of whom work downtown, they will be wondering what the hell Devon was thinking.

Parking is going to be an issue for about 4 to 8 more years…but as soon as this current boom and another boom of housing gets completed and people continue to move closer to downtown in neighborhoods like CTP, Jefferson Park, etc. and they bike to work or take public transit, then the parking issues will subside naturally, and because of how much we're building, we'll probably be way over produced on parking. But I guess it will give suburbanites a place to park when they come downtown…But then they're going to have to walk all the way to Midtown (The Horror!!!!)

[Bellaboo]

Right now, sure.

When Downtown OKC has 50,000 residents, a majority of whom work downtown, they will be wondering what the hell Devon was thinking.

Parking is going to be an issue for about 4 to 8 more years…but as soon as this current boom and another boom of housing gets completed and people continue to move closer to downtown in neighborhoods like CTP, Jefferson Park, etc. and they bike to work or take public transit, then the parking issues will subside naturally, and because of how much we're building, we'll probably be way over produced on parking. But I guess it will give suburbanites a place to park when they come downtown…But then they're going to have to walk all the way to Midtown (The Horror!!!!)

Teo,
You know they'll jump on the streetcar !

[Urbanized]

Guys, no offense here, but we could continue to re-urbanize our central city for another 30 or 40 years and OKC would STILL be heavily skewed to suburban. That is especially true if we continue to allow unchecked less-than-optimal unplanned growth at the fringe, but would even be the case if we stopped most outward growth and concentrated on making existing suburbs better (which is what we SHOULD be doing). It might end up being some combination of both, but the 'burbs won't be going away in any of our lifetimes.

As such, we can't work in a vacuum and pretend the 'burbs don't/won't exist when building our corporate infrastructure. For many of the people who work in those jobs, it will remain the lifestyle of choice, and that in itself is not a crime. OF COURSE we need to invest in rail and transit in hopes of shifting the suburban commute in that direction, but even so you will have large amounts of our population arriving by auto. For decades. Pete is correct that the problem here isn't that parking was built, it was that it wasn't creatively integrated. The paradigm needs to shift in the direction of street interaction, walkabiltiy and sense of place (within reason) on every street where new development appears. If these things had been stressed in this design, had it made a better attempt to screen parking with human uses and to better engage the street, the fact that there was lots of structured parking involved would not (should not) have been so offensive.

[OkieNate]

There appears to be scaffolding on Hotel Black. Are they going to re-use the windows or is this common for a building set to be demoed to have scaffolding around it?

[Pete]

There appears to be scaffolding on Hotel Black. Are they going to re-use the windows or is this common for a building set to be demoed to have scaffolding around it?

In the proposal for 499 Sheridan, they showed plans to save some of the detailed tiles, so I suspect that it the reason for the scaffolding.

[Teo9969]

Guys, no offense here, but we could continue to re-urbanize our central city for another 30 or 40 years and OKC would STILL be heavily skewed to suburban. That is especially true if we continue to allow unchecked less-than-optimal unplanned growth at the fringe, but would even be the case if we stopped most outward growth and concentrated on making existing suburbs better (which is what we SHOULD be doing). It might end up being some combination of both, but the 'burbs won't be going away in any of our lifetimes.

As such, we can't work in a vacuum and pretend the 'burbs don't/won't exist when building our corporate infrastructure. For many of the people who work in those jobs, it will remain the lifestyle of choice, and that in itself is not a crime. OF COURSE we need to invest in rail and transit in hopes of shifting the suburban commute in that direction, but even so you will have large amounts of our population arriving by auto. For decades. Pete is correct that the problem here isn't that parking was built, it was that it wasn't creatively integrated. The paradigm needs to shift in the direction of street interaction, walkabiltiy and sense of place (within reason) on every street where new development appears. If these things had been stressed in this design, had it made a better attempt to screen parking with human uses and to better engage the street, the fact that there was lots of structured parking involved would not (should not) have been so offensive.

Sure, I don't think anyone is saying that we should never build parking again. But as re-urbanization occurs, 2 parking garages for 1 building is also not going to be a future reality.

If you have 10,000 people working CBD jobs and 5,000 people living downtown, you need a LOT of parking. If you have 20,000 people working CBD jobs and 50,000 people living downtown, you don't need double the parking, if any extra at all.

All of that reinforces the need to do the parking that we're doing NOW well, because we're not going to be building dozens of parking garages in 2020. And especially because the CBD is so compact, if the parking garages do a terrible job at street interaction, we're going to have a massive hole in our urban fabric right in the center of the city.

[Urbanized]

...If you have 10,000 people working CBD jobs and 5,000 people living downtown, you need a LOT of parking. If you have 20,000 people working CBD jobs and 50,000 people living downtown, you don't need double the parking, if any extra at all...

The only problem with this line of reasoning is that you are assuming a significant percentage of downtown workers will also choose to live downtown. I am saying the correlation is looser than you think.

This is anecdotal, but I'm pretty sure that right now the existing downtown residential population skews AWAY from downtown workers. In my experience as a downtown resident the population leans heavily toward OUHSC, Tinker and places other than downtown. Not sure why; perhaps because so many people working in those places come from somewhere else and downtown living is a good cultural fit for them.

But downtown workers - especially corporate types - still tend to prefer the 'burbs here. Again, that's probably cultural. But it's not something that is going to change overnight, or next year, or next decade.

We need to plan for the future, but we have to work within the REALITY of the world as it exists today, and as it likely will exist for decades to come. It's a ridiculous notion to suggest that if a major corporation requires parking that they should stick to the 'burbs or not even build/expand here at all, and yet I have seen people espouse EXACTLY that in this forum.

Running off jobs on principle is foolishness. Instead, the focus MUST instead be on integrating those jobs and the resulting people/cars/buildings more carefully into the urban fabric. That is simply not being done very well with our large projects.

[Pete]

The only problem with this line of reasoning is that you are assuming a significant percentage of downtown workers will also choose to live downtown. I am saying the correlation is looser than you think.

Yes, I bet even after all the units under construction opens, still a tiny percentage of downtown workers will actually live downtown.

And while it will change somewhat when the streetcar starts rolling, you can bet even those who live at the Edge or LIFT or a lot of places in the core will still drive their cars to the CBD.


The smarter employers will start to offer incentives for people to use public transportation but that is just no a reliable option for probably 98% of downtown workers and won't likely change much in the near future.

[hoya]

It'll be 20 years before parking is no longer an issue downtown. I know that JTF will probably chime in and say that parking and traffic will always be an issue for people who choose to drive cars, and I agree with him. But right now, we don't have a viable alternative. Public transportation in this city is virtually nonexistent. We don't have enough downtown housing for our downtown workers. If a new company is going to move downtown it must have parking. That is just the reality of the situation.

It's the design of the 499 garages that is the problem, not their existence. The design is bad because they're tearing down nearly an entire block for parking garages. Nearly everything about how this entire project was handled was a big middle finger to people who want to maintain our city's historic buildings. That's the bad part, not the fact that they're putting in X number of structured parking spaces.

[Pete]

From this morning:

[CarlessInOKC]

Public transportation in this city is virtually nonexistent.

20 routes with 30-minute headways covering more than 300 linear miles, and close to half of the city's population is within a 10-minute walk of a bus stop, including all of the residents in suburbia.

There are deficiencies for sure, but this view that we don't have any transit is more of a reflection of the car dependence of most people in this city, not that transit is nonexistent.

[Teo9969]

The only problem with this line of reasoning is that you are assuming a significant percentage of downtown workers will also choose to live downtown. I am saying the correlation is looser than you think.

This is anecdotal, but I'm pretty sure that right now the existing downtown residential population skews AWAY from downtown workers. In my experience as a downtown resident the population leans heavily toward OUHSC, Tinker and places other than downtown. Not sure why; perhaps because so many people working in those places come from somewhere else and downtown living is a good cultural fit for them.

But downtown workers - especially corporate types - still tend to prefer the 'burbs here. Again, that's probably cultural. But it's not something that is going to change overnight, or next year, or next decade.

We need to plan for the future, but we have to work within the REALITY of the world as it exists today, and as it likely will exist for decades to come. It's a ridiculous notion to suggest that if a major corporation requires parking that they should stick to the 'burbs or not even build/expand here at all, and yet I have seen people espouse EXACTLY that in this forum.

Running off jobs on principle is foolishness. Instead, the focus MUST instead be on integrating those jobs and the resulting people/cars/buildings more carefully into the urban fabric. That is simply not being done very well with our large projects.

I think we agree on everything. My point is simply that we're going to increase housing downtown at a rate of 500% to 1000% of the rate we increase CBD jobs over the next 15 years. So while right now, it would take 100% of downtown residents to fill out 40%-60% of downtown jobs, it won't need to be such a massive percentage in the future. If 15% of downtown residents work in the CBD in 10 years (which is by no means a given, but neither unreasonable) I think these parking issues will be mostly resolved by then.

We have to remember that downtown living is still pretty much a new thing and so there's still a lot of moving parts. I think the residential location of CBD workers will experience a gradual shift from a negligible % of downtown residents to something between 5% and 10% in the relatively short term (5-10 years). Another 10% to 40% may begin living in areas that are within biking distance or public transportation (The 005 line is about to get a night route and that will help the Classen Corridor be more viable via public transit).

[Just the facts]

Name me one city in the world that doesn't have a downtown parking problem. The city will never solve its parking problem so waiting until it does to shift the focus away from cars isn't a viable strategy. In fact, every new parking space makes the transition just that much harder. To quote the WOPR computer, "Strange game. The only way to win is not to play."

I know people who work and live downtown now - and they drive to work. I worked in City Center Philadelphia which has 75,000 residents and they have a parking problem. More downtown residents won't fix the problem. The only to solve the parking problem is to remove it. Now granted, that will cause other problems but those can be fixed.

[hoya]

I know that JTF will probably chime in and say that parking and traffic will always be an issue for people who choose to drive cars, and I agree with him.

Name me one city in the world that doesn't have a downtown parking problem. The city will never solve its parking problem so waiting until it does to shift the focus away from cars isn't a viable strategy. In fact, every new parking space makes the transition just that much harder. To quote the WOPR computer, "Strange game. The only way to win is not to play."

I know people who work and live downtown now - and they drive to work. I worked in City Center Philadelphia which has 75,000 residents and they have a parking problem. More downtown residents won't fix the problem. The only to solve the parking problem is to remove it. Now granted, that will cause other problems but those can be fixed.

Behold my psychic powers.

[Laramie]

Any idea what this building will look like at night?

Add about 45 feet to Tulsa's 110 West 7th Street Office Tower (28 stories/388 feet)

[LocoAko]

I could probably find it if I dig enough digging, but weren't there renderings someone (KayneMo?) did showing various views of the skyline once this and the OG&E Tower are built? If so, could they be linked or reposted here? I couldn't locate them with the searching I've done so far.

[Pete]

Here are some also showing the proposed Clayco towers and the original location of the convention hotel:

[LocoAko]

Here are some also showing the proposed Clayco towers and the original location of the convention hotel:
[/center]

Thank you! That was it. Looks great.

[UnFrSaKn]

That's back when we thought we would nearly double the skyline we have now. Today... not so much.

[Pete]

It could still turn out pretty close:

- 499 Sheridan
- OG&E Tower
- Clayco residential tower
- Convention center hotel
- REHCO development on property directly west of Chesapeake Arena

[TU 'cane]

As long as OGE kicks up, it'll be darn close with the convention center hotel (which we can safely hope may be more than 200 feet, right?) also popping up.
As long as these three get going, the rest won't matter if you're after the skyline presence. Because that'll be 3 decent sized towers to the west and will still create the pyramid affect that Hines was going after.