Re: General Urban Development
Denser buildings, yes...Taller buildings not necessarily. I can't post enough just how much I think the Sony Center in Berlin should be sort of the framework for how both the Cox site and the Ford site are developed.
Without focusing on things like the roof, the facades, the gimmicks, pay attention to how this building simultaneously creates its own environment yet still interacts with the surrounding environment. An open space that brings people in yet maintains visibility between MBG and Central Park/Santa Fe station. Yet it also maintains interaction at street level (at least on the sides where it's most important).
But it's also big. It's plenty big to house significant office space, a number of housing units, plenty of retail/restaurant options (which on the Ford lot will be critical for the Convention Center to be the best C.C. that it can be). I think that on each pad there could be a 20+ story building, but I would rather 80% of the block be built at 12-15 stories high than 10% built at 20+ and 90% built at 4-6 stories high.
The connectivity opportunity between 3 of the most important sites downtown (MBG, Central Park, SF station) is massive, and I'd love to think that it's a given that these two developments will push for that, but it costs a lot of money to leave a hole in the middle of a project so that there's direct-line access to MBG from the other two sites. It's the #1 most important aspect of these sites, followed directly by density and mixed-use.
They might just be the 2 most important pieces of real estate in the entire state of Oklahoma. So the projects should be ambitious.
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Originally Posted by KayneMo
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