BOK Park Plaza

[Jeepnokc]

Does anyone know anyone with JE Dunn Construction or Midwest Wrecking? If so, can you PM me or call me at 405-250-1847 Thanks John

[Just the facts]

The problem I have with all this is the mindset of those involved, and not from a building hugger point of view, but from a tax liability point of view. We should be creating MORE taxpayers along each foot of taxpayer funded infrastructure, not less. It is not going to be sustainable and it is always dangerous to put more and more eggs into fewer and fewer baskets.

[Pete]

In case you haven't seen this... It's a drone video taken by my a friend. Pretty cool:

https://vimeo.com/139125736

[bchris02]

Out of curiosity, what does the construction timeline look at in terms of phases? Are they going to construct the parking garages first followed by the tower or will it all be constructed at the same time?

[Pete]

I don't think they've mentioned building one or both the parking garages first, but I suspect they'll build the one to the west ASAP so they can use it for their construction crew.

If they go that route, that garage could go up very quickly.

[OkieNate]

In case you haven't seen this... It's a drone video taken by my a friend. Pretty cool:

https://vimeo.com/139125736

THIS IS SO AWESOME!!!! I went downtown for lunch today and I have to say that the absence of Stage Center is still much more strange than both of these buildings being on the ground.

P.S. Lake Lackmeyer is looking pretty sad...

[catcherinthewry]

Out of curiosity, what does the construction timeline look at in terms of phases? Are they going to construct the parking garages first followed by the tower or will it all be constructed at the same time?

What's up with the construction question? I thought this thread was about the demolition of buildings and how stupid OKC is.

[Kemotblue]

The building's are gone and they are not coming back you can't save a dying horse. I'm sad they are gone but atleast the construction is starting right up after the land is cleared not like the land that sits across that just may become a parking lot in the future. I'm not holding my breath on that development.

[soonerguru]

The building's are gone and they are not coming back you can't save a dying horse. I'm sad they are gone but atleast the construction is starting right up after the land is cleared not like the land that sits across that just may become a parking lot in the future. I'm not holding my breath on that development.

I think they know most people will come around to this way of thinking, so they can and will continue to pillage what little is left of this city's built environment. I'm sure if they want to tear down 2/3 of the First National block it will probably be a lost cause to try to fight it (although I agree with what Phi Alpha is saying).

I remember when they used to say they wanted a "24/7 active downtown." Yeah, right. They don't want a real city. They want convenient places to park when they go to the Thunder Game or Opening Night.

Our downtown has actually not become much more vibrant than it was when I lived there well over a decade ago.

Remember: You're still talking about a group of people who believe a relatively cheap convention center will be "transformational" and represents the "crown jewel" (Oklahoman's words) of the MAPS 3 projects.

[GoldFire]

I think they know most people will come around to this way of thinking, so they can and will continue to pillage what little is left of this city's built environment. I'm sure if they want to tear down 2/3 of the First National block it will probably be a lost cause to try to fight it (although I agree with what Phi Alpha is saying).

I remember when they used to say they wanted a "24/7 active downtown." Yeah, right. They don't want a real city. They want convenient places to park when they go to the Thunder Game or Opening Night.

Our downtown has actually not become much more vibrant than it was when I lived there well over a decade ago.

Remember: You're still talking about a group of people who believe a relatively cheap convention center will be "transformational" and represents the "crown jewel" (Oklahoman's words) of the MAPS 3 projects.

I have to disagree with that. I've lived in downtown for 3.5 years and the change in activity and life around downtown that I've seen in that short time is quite remarkable.

[bchris02]

I remember when they used to say they wanted a "24/7 active downtown." Yeah, right. They don't want a real city. They want convenient places to park when they go to the Thunder Game or Opening Night.

I have to disagree with that. I've lived in downtown for 3.5 years and the change in activity and life around downtown that I've seen in that short time is quite remarkable.

Unfortunately, when a majority of downtown's businesses are supported primarily by people who live north of 122nd, things like convenient parking are going to be a priority for most people. People may want a 24/7 downtown, but the most important ingredient for making it happen is missing; population density. Downtown needs to be a primarily a live/work/play neighborhood rather than a destination for suburbanites to spend a Friday or Saturday night. I definitely believe downtown OKC is becoming a lot more vibrant and active than it was a few years ago when I moved back. It's not where I would like to see it yet but there has definitely been progress just over the past few years. What the city needs more than anything is more people living downtown. Only 5,000 people were living downtown in 2010. There is a good chance that's increased to around 7,000 by now, but imagine downtown OKC if 50,000+ people were living in the box surrounded by 36th, I-235, Reno, and Penn. 50,000 people seems like a lot, but believe it or not that represents less than 5% of the total population of metro OKC.

[Teo9969]

Unfortunately, when a majority of downtown's businesses are supported primarily by people who live north of 122nd, things like convenient parking are going to be a priority for most people. People may want a 24/7 downtown, but the most important ingredient for making it happen is missing; population density. Downtown needs to be a primarily a live/work/play neighborhood rather than a destination for suburbanites to spend a Friday or Saturday night. I definitely believe downtown OKC is becoming a lot more vibrant and active than it was a few years ago when I moved back. It's not where I would like to see it yet but there has definitely been progress just over the past few years. What the city needs more than anything is more people living downtown. Only 5,000 people were living downtown in 2010. There is a good chance that's increased to around 7,000 by now, but imagine downtown OKC if 50,000+ people were living in the box surrounded by 36th, I-235, Reno, and Penn. 50,000 people seems like a lot, but believe it or not that represents less than 5% of the total population of metro OKC.

I'm pretty sure we are close to 50,000 in that box.

[soonerguru]

I have to disagree with that. I've lived in downtown for 3.5 years and the change in activity and life around downtown that I've seen in that short time is quite remarkable.

It has come and gone in waves. In the early to mid aughts, there were spikes in activity. Bricktown, believe it or not, used to have some very cool venues. We've seen new restaurants come, and old ones go. It wasn't anything special but The Oyster Bar was very fun. The basement of the Colcord was a cool nightclub. There used to be a couple of dance clubs (non-cheesy variety) downtown. There was a live music ampitheatre in Bricktown before the canal was built.

I think we are seeing improvements, but we're also seeing demolitions, and we're witnessing a sterilization of our downtown.

I've lived in a real city (NYC). In real cities, you have all sorts of people of different ethnic persuasions and social strata living and interacting with each other.

In places like OKC and Dallas, there seems to be a need to gentrify everything and run out the "undesirables." I'm not a fan of hanging out with criminals at all but it seems like a car-centric, parking-garage-filled, sidewalk-free (as in, no people on the sidewalks) environment is what is being produced in our city. No appealing street life. Nothing eclectic. A few fancy corporatish restaurants and LOTS OF PARKING GARAGES don't create street life.

Regardless of anyone's personal feelings on Stage Center, it was a globally recognized architectural achievement. It's now a an empty lot with fetid standing water and the vague promise of some kind of corporate HQ (we have no idea what).

I'm sorry if this sounds harsh. I love OKC. And, I'm not totally off the bandwagon, but I'm souring rapidly. Tired of the bait and switch of the bus station. The rapid movement to tear down edifices with incredulous claims that they "cannot be saved" while taxpayers are asked for huge TIF payments for new, mildly interesting corporate monoliths that add nothing to the heartbeat of our city. And all this while one of the few remaining treasures in our skyline is rotting and caught up in court actions.

We've lost so much in the last few years it's astonishing, and yet block after block of empty voids remain from our city's last ill-conceived "renewal" period. This one is admittedly better, but falling far short of what it could have been, and even the victories we've seen, like the concept behind Project 180, are suffused with disappointing results.

Sorry, I'm bummed out about this and I couldn't bear to click any of the videos of the demolitions yesterday. And, I should add for clarity, I'm talking about DOWNTOWN, not Midtown, Uptown, Plaza and the other areas that are improving mightily.

[bombermwc]

I was about to agree with soonerguru, but with GoldFire, I can't really say anything since I don't live downtown. GoldFire could probably answer that questions far better than any of us. I don't feel like we have the residential concentration in the actual CBD (I don't count Deep Deuce since it's way the "f" over in Bricktown) to keep things going 24/7, but I do think it's more alive than it was pre-Maps. We're still infants and until we can grow out of our need to create upscale living downtown, it's not going to happen because you wont attract the masses to attract the retailers. Especially not in a suburban city like ours.

Sooner, your reply to my comment really made my argument for me (in my view), but that's part of the interesting thing about opinions (which is all this stuff is). What one person views as solid material to defend themselves can be the very material someone else can use to claim their own argument. I think we all know we're never all going to agree on this one, but as someone else said....it's done. Doesn't mean to can't discuss, but it is done. One thing I will point out though, is that from the very beginning of this being called the "preftakes block" it was ABUNDUNATLY clear that his intention was to demo the block. There is no other reason to buy up land like that in such a mish-mash, concentrated in one area. Either you're buying it to demo yourself or to sell to someone else for them to demo for their project. We've had about 10 years to really think about this. Do I wish we hadn't lost a couple of mid-rise structures, sure. Am I going to lose sleep over them when I see 499 put up? Nope...not at all. Especially not for the 1-2 floor buildings...including the lunch box.

Now sooner, you continue to complain that OKC isn't a "real city". If your comparisons are to places like NYC, then you're never going to be happy. OKC is a suburban city. It's only going to get more suburban as we grow. We can't enforce a growth boundary (we've had long discussions on that on this forum) so sprawl is just a fact of life. We've really got another 100 years-worth of land out there that can be developed in OKC proper, not to mention the other outlying areas. Start splitting those large outskirt acreages into neighborhoods (like seems to be a pattern these days) and you can probably add another 100 years on that. Our city is an infant compared to NYC or really any major metro in the US, much less the rest of the world. OKC was built on the car. What we really should strive for is to make the two work TOGETHER. The car is going to win here every time...it still wins in most major metros. NYC is unique in its concentration of urbanity, but do we really want to be NYC? Hell no. OKC has always been a hybrid city....we're on the line of two major growth zones, we're on the line between topographic zones, we're a mix of rural and urban within the same city limits, we've got one of the better equity distribution maps around, the list goes on. NYC, as an example, the Drake Hotel (21 floors) which was a historic structure with far more elements to it that would have made it worth keeping, underwent a similar purchase by a private group (keep in mind the hotel was still operating with profit). It was demoed in favor of 432 Park Ave (at 88 floors now the tallest residential tower in NYC). I'd say they got a far worse (and ugly) building out of that deal than OKC is getting here.

So I say all that not to point a finger and say "you're wrong and I'm right"....that's not my intent here. What I mean by saying all of that is that I hear what you're saying. I don't disagree with all of your points. What I think we should be doing is working to merge the opinions together. The car isn't leaving, so lets work to make the feet and the wheels work together in a meaningful way. We're not in a urban renewal period....this one was 100% privately financed. That's TOTALLY different than pei.

[hoya]

^^^

I often disagree with bombermwc, but everything he says here is 100% correct. Even NYC tears down beautiful old structures to build ugly-ass new stuff.

I'd like to see OKC become a lot more urban. When I drive to work in the morning, I see our skyline and I like to insert extra buildings. "Okay put this here, that there, fill out this area over here..." I think over the next 20 to 30 years we could really make our downtown very impressive. Getting 50,000 people to live in the area of 13th to the river, and Classen to 235 would be incredible. The better we make our city, the more people will naturally want to move here. Give people an option of urban living and they'll take it. But I don't see any way that we'll have more people living in an urban setting than a suburban setting. Not for 100 years.

[DenverPoke]

I have to disagree with that. I've lived in downtown for 3.5 years and the change in activity and life around downtown that I've seen in that short time is quite remarkable.

I happened to be in OKC this last weekend for the first time since about 2012. Maybe it was the time of day (around 6pm) and that OU and OSU were both playing, but I was pretty surprised how dead Bricktown was. My wife even commented about how it seemed less active than our last visit.

Anyway, I am impressed with the amount of infill that has occurred in the last few years. Keep it going OKC!

[BDP]

Our downtown has actually not become much more vibrant than it was when I lived there well over a decade ago.

Whoa. Ten years? That's simply not true. 10th St., Bricktown, Deep Deuce, and AA are much more vibrant and active in the evenings. More so than just 3 years ago. The last two weekends I drove down 10th street around 7, it was streaming with people. Is that saying it's now bustling 24/7 now? Not at all. But 10 years ago, half the stuff that people are filling up in the evenings wasn't even there. So, relatively, it is much more active. The crazy thing is that you can now also see it in outer districts like the Plaza District, 23rd / Paseo as well.

Now, if you want to talk about the CBD specifically, then that's different. Park Ave. was fairly active during the day 10 years ago, and even with Devon and the high occupancy rates, it doesn't feel much different and it's still a dead zone after 6. But that is specifically because of how it was developed decades ago and continues to be developed today with projects like 499. Of course, this often true even in many of the nation's biggest cities, though many are actively changing that.

I think at this point, however, we don't need to look to other cities to see what creates vibrant districts and cultural hubs. We've done it here. 499 developers even pointed that out in its own propaganda. So, even they were aware of it from the beginning. This is a deliberate choice to NOT attempt that and to simply expand the CBDs exclusively 9-5 function. And if it is as self contained as Devon is, it may actually have a net negative effect of activity around the block from what it was 10 years ago. If the garage will be open on the weekends for park visitors, there will be some activity from that, but if it's just people parking in the garages M-F and holing up in the building most of the time, it won't be noticed much from the street, except in increased car traffic at at the corner.

Let's just hope that I'm wrong and somehow this one turns out to be different, but that would make it an anomaly from every other block that is 60% parking garages.

[Rover]

I happened to be in OKC this last weekend for the first time since about 2012. Maybe it was the time of day (around 6pm) and that OU and OSU were both playing, but I was pretty surprised how dead Bricktown was. My wife even commented about how it seemed less active than our last visit.

Anyway, I am impressed with the amount of infill that has occurred in the last few years. Keep it going OKC!

LOL....at 6 pm Saturday everywhere in OKC was dead unless you were at sports bars or restaurants with the game on. Even the dreaded Edmond was dead.

[adaniel]

Probably a mix of the games being on and more competition from other districts for the "entertainment dollar." Bricktown is morphing from a weekend only place into an actual neighborhood, which can only be a good thing IMO.

I don't care at all how this development went down, but its over and done with. I am not sure it justifies this level of self loathing, especially with so much else going on. And maybe its because I am on the outside looking in right now, but I am more bullish on OKC now more than ever. Even with declining oil prices, general incompetence from the state government, and other issues, for OKC to still be kicking the way it is I think is a testament to the strength of this city. Still etching out decent job growth, sales tax growth (while the state in general contracts), and still getting a good level of new development and new businesses.

[BDP]

I happened to be in OKC this last weekend for the first time since about 2012. Maybe it was the time of day (around 6pm) and that OU and OSU were both playing, but I was pretty surprised how dead Bricktown was. My wife even commented about how it seemed less active than our last visit.

Anyway, I am impressed with the amount of infill that has occurred in the last few years. Keep it going OKC!

Must have been the games. I was at Deep Deuce Grill for the OU game and the patio was probably 90% full. Walked down to Skinny Slims at 10 and there was definitely activity in bricktown. Not the most I have ever seen, but not dead.

[shawnw]

There were lots of festivals this past weekend...

[DenverPoke]

LOL....at 6 pm Saturday everywhere in OKC was dead unless you were at sports bars or restaurants with the game on. Even the dreaded Edmond was dead.

I was at TapWerks and it was pretty quiet, as were other bars in the area. I suppose I just expected Bricktown to be more lively with the OU-Tenn game on.

[soonerguru]

I was about to agree with soonerguru, but with GoldFire, I can't really say anything since I don't live downtown. GoldFire could probably answer that questions far better than any of us. I don't feel like we have the residential concentration in the actual CBD (I don't count Deep Deuce since it's way the "f" over in Bricktown) to keep things going 24/7, but I do think it's more alive than it was pre-Maps. We're still infants and until we can grow out of our need to create upscale living downtown, it's not going to happen because you wont attract the masses to attract the retailers. Especially not in a suburban city like ours.

Sooner, your reply to my comment really made my argument for me (in my view), but that's part of the interesting thing about opinions (which is all this stuff is). What one person views as solid material to defend themselves can be the very material someone else can use to claim their own argument. I think we all know we're never all going to agree on this one, but as someone else said....it's done. Doesn't mean to can't discuss, but it is done. One thing I will point out though, is that from the very beginning of this being called the "preftakes block" it was ABUNDUNATLY clear that his intention was to demo the block. There is no other reason to buy up land like that in such a mish-mash, concentrated in one area. Either you're buying it to demo yourself or to sell to someone else for them to demo for their project. We've had about 10 years to really think about this. Do I wish we hadn't lost a couple of mid-rise structures, sure. Am I going to lose sleep over them when I see 499 put up? Nope...not at all. Especially not for the 1-2 floor buildings...including the lunch box.

Now sooner, you continue to complain that OKC isn't a "real city". If your comparisons are to places like NYC, then you're never going to be happy. OKC is a suburban city. It's only going to get more suburban as we grow. We can't enforce a growth boundary (we've had long discussions on that on this forum) so sprawl is just a fact of life. We've really got another 100 years-worth of land out there that can be developed in OKC proper, not to mention the other outlying areas. Start splitting those large outskirt acreages into neighborhoods (like seems to be a pattern these days) and you can probably add another 100 years on that. Our city is an infant compared to NYC or really any major metro in the US, much less the rest of the world. OKC was built on the car. What we really should strive for is to make the two work TOGETHER. The car is going to win here every time...it still wins in most major metros. NYC is unique in its concentration of urbanity, but do we really want to be NYC? Hell no. OKC has always been a hybrid city....we're on the line of two major growth zones, we're on the line between topographic zones, we're a mix of rural and urban within the same city limits, we've got one of the better equity distribution maps around, the list goes on. NYC, as an example, the Drake Hotel (21 floors) which was a historic structure with far more elements to it that would have made it worth keeping, underwent a similar purchase by a private group (keep in mind the hotel was still operating with profit). It was demoed in favor of 432 Park Ave (at 88 floors now the tallest residential tower in NYC). I'd say they got a far worse (and ugly) building out of that deal than OKC is getting here.

So I say all that not to point a finger and say "you're wrong and I'm right"....that's not my intent here. What I mean by saying all of that is that I hear what you're saying. I don't disagree with all of your points. What I think we should be doing is working to merge the opinions together. The car isn't leaving, so lets work to make the feet and the wheels work together in a meaningful way. We're not in a urban renewal period....this one was 100% privately financed. That's TOTALLY different than pei.

Good points. For the record, I know OKC won't ever become a NYC. What I'm talking about is the strange need to sterilize things here. There are cities much smaller than OKC with a lot more urbanity and eclecticism.

One small point of contention: we were not "built for the car." Our original footprint was extremely bustling, urban, and dense. In 1910, we were more urban than we are now. We did, as you point out, become a suburban city over time, but we didn't start out that way.

I realize we will at best never be more than a hybrid, and I'm totally cool with that, which is why I'm so disappointed by the homogenization of what remains of our urban spaces and inner-city built environment.

Saying all that, I'm enjoying the changes we are witnessing in Midtown, AA, Plaza, and Uptown.

[BDP]

I realize we will at best never be more than a hybrid, and I'm totally cool with that...

That really should be the goal. The reality is today that is needed to stay relevant. But to be a hyrbid, the city and its developers need to be committed to both concepts and where those concepts will be implemented. That did not happen in this case.

[C. B.]

In addition to the OU and OSU games both on TV, there were 7,000 people at Taft Stadium for the OKC Energy soccer game.