Devon Plans Downtown Skyscraper

[FritterGirl]

Retracting my last post.

Building renderings, and perhaps model, will be ready for Devon in/around third week of August. No confirmation on whether they will be made available to the public, or simply submitted to DE for their review.

Plans for another major project associated with the building will not be put in place until sometime in October, or later.

Sorry. Source got confused.

[Architect2010]

Okay. I don't know what other major project you are talking about that is tied-in with the Devon Tower... I'll bite...

*OMG! What major project? I haven't heard of this! Please elaborate FlitterGirl.*

lol. gawd. Cooking chicken at KFC for 8 hours makes you nuts. :]

[FritterGirl]

Wasn't trying to bait. The project has been mentioned before and announced in the papers. It's the proposed tie-in to the Myriad Gardens across the street.

[OKCisOK4me]

LOL, yeah, I can see how plans for a project going 100 ft. across the street vs. maybe 700 ft. in to the air can take much longer. No biggie on that though. I do hope, we the public, get something soon.

[bdhumphreys]

Hey Everyone:

With the Devon Tower and everything else OKC has going on the city is undergoing a rapid transformation. I thought it might be a good time to start a blog - imagiNATIVEamerica - and try to apply some of the things I am learning in school (getting a Masters in City Planning and Urban Design) to the issues we are encountering in Oklahoma City.

Hope you enjoy it and please contribute to the dialogue.

Thanks, Blair

[solitude]

Hey Everyone:

With the Devon Tower and everything else OKC has going on the city is undergoing a rapid transformation. I thought it might be a good time to start a blog - imagiNATIVEamerica - and try to apply some of the things I am learning in school (getting a Masters in City Planning and Urban Design) to the issues we are encountering in Oklahoma City.

Hope you enjoy it and please contribute to the dialogue.

Thanks, Blair

Hi Blair.....Welcome to OKCTalk! I'll have to take a look at your blog. Are you the Blair, brother of Grant and son of Kirk?

[bdhumphreys]

Hi Blair.....Welcome to OKCTalk! I'll have to take a look at your blog. Are you the Blair, brother of Grant and son of Kirk?

Yep! But you can just call me Blair. Thanks for the welcome Solitude.

[OKC74]

I read the entry earlier about some type of "tie-in" to the Myriad Gardens. I haven't heard much about this, and was wondering if there are more towers going up downtown other than the new Devon Tower and whatever else is tied in with Myriad Gardens? I was speaking to a friend last night and we were discussing the new Devon Tower, and he mentioned that in his neighborhood newsletter (he lives in Paseo), they mentioned that TWO towers were being planned downtown in addition to the Devon Tower. Does anyone have information on these two buildings, or what they possibly may be? New companies? Companies re-locating from other areas of town? This was the first I'd heard of additional towers, but he was adamant that this is what he had read. Any ideas?

[FritterGirl]

The towers are likely the towers that were looked at as ideas as part of the proposed Core to Shore project. You can look back in this thread, and in other threads about Core 2 Shore, which will give you a better idea of what is being considered. You can also visit the Core to Shore site on the okc.gov website to see renderings of what the area could look like, including the towers.

The towers are simply an "idea" at this point. I don't believe there is any discussion of real development at this time, as the land for their use is still under private ownership by other entities.

[jbrown84]

Sounds like the Myriad Gardens "tie in" will be more significant than I assumed.

[OKC74]

Thanks FritterGirl...that's what I figured, but just wasn't sure if I had missed something. But how great would it be if there WERE two additional towers planned AS WELL as the Devon and possible Core to Shore buildings?!?!?!?!

[Kerry]

Maybe the Myriad Gardens are going to be covered in a giant glass dome to make it a year around attraction.

Like this but much bigger. Image:Reichstag Dome 8.JPG - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[David Pollard]

Maybe the Myriad Gardens are going to be covered in a giant glass dome to make it a year around attraction.

Like this but much bigger. Image:Reichstag Dome 8.JPG - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Actually, a dome covering the Myriad Gardens would be MUCH bigger than the Reichstag dome.

Personally I am hoping for something more fundamental such as a number of quality restaurants such as Tavern on the Green in New York. This would provide a real draw for the gardens in the evening as well, which I think may be what is missing. I am also thinking sidewalk cafe's during the day and any number of high-quality attractions.

The original design of the Gardens was modeled on Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen, which includes both restaurants and a sort of amusement park in the old-fashioned sense of the world. Devon will probably want to create a high-quality urban venue, but let's hope that they don't forget that that location is crucial to other bordering blocks, and there needs to be a good tie-in to the urban fabric of downtown. Currently the gardens are a bit of an oasis. Not good in the long run.

[metro]

David, please know that the Shakespeare in the Park is a regular summer event for the Gardens, it draws quite a crowd and has a concession stand, but a "Tavern on the Green" or sidewalk cafe's would surely be nice. We just don't have that kind of foot traffic yet on that side of downtown. I imagine when Devon's tower is ready, there will be more than enough.

[solitude]

Maybe the Myriad Gardens are going to be covered in a giant glass dome to make it a year around attraction.

Like this but much bigger. Image:Reichstag Dome 8.JPG - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The "tie-in" would have to be thought through ever so carefully. Any kind of covering of the Myriad Gardens would be a disaster as we have precious little green space downtown. I like the oasis as someone described it earlier. At any rate - it's public space and I wonder how a private company thinks they have rights to tie their private project in with anything other than complimentary architecture, etc. Of course, the blurring of big corporations and city governance is making it hard to sometimes tell the difference.

[Richard at Remax]

could someone refresh my memory and tell me what exactly they want to tie in with the gardens?

[David Pollard]

The "tie-in" would have to be thought through ever so carefully. Any kind of covering of the Myriad Gardens would be a disaster as we have precious little green space downtown. I like the oasis as someone described it earlier. At any rate - it's public space and I wonder how a private company thinks they have rights to tie their private project in with anything other than complimentary architecture, etc. Of course, the blurring of big corporations and city governance is making it hard to sometimes tell the difference.

Actually, that is a very good point that I remember crossing my mind when I first heard of Devon's plans to update the Myriad Gardens. Nonetheless, if they are able to pull off a quality update that benefits ALL of the public and not just Devon Employees, then I say go for it!

[metro]

I'm assuming it will be some sort of pedestrian bridge or tunnel but will be artistic or "iconic". haha

[solitude]

I'm assuming it will be some sort of pedestrian bridge or tunnel but will be artistic or "iconic". haha

I hear 'ya. I hope whatever Devon does will be "iconic"; but wouldn't everyone agree that word should be nominated as the most overused term for 2007-2008? It seems like I read it and hear it at least once a day.

[jbrown84]

Maybe the Myriad Gardens are going to be covered in a giant glass dome to make it a year around attraction.

Like this but much bigger. Image:Reichstag Dome 8.JPG - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

No thank you.

[Grant]

I'm thinking it's some sort of sky walk connecting the building to the park. Those things are all over the place in Indianapolis. It seems like all the buildings in downtown Indy are connected. They're pretty nice to have around.

[JLCinOKC]

Not sure why they would want to build a skywalk when there is already an underground tunnel running from the "Galleria" parking garage to the gardens.

But I hope whatever it ends up being blows us away!

[sgt. pepper]

i'm sorry, but i don't understand the "tie" to the myrid gardens when you can just walk across the sreet. of course i don't know the extend of renovations to the garden area. but please...no reichstag dome lookin thing.

[FritterGirl]

There are no guarantees in anything, but at this point, there is no talk of any reichstag dome-looking thing, so you all may rest easy on that.

Are there other plans? Yes, but what those are is being left to the consultants at this point, so there are really no details to give out other than to say that Mr. Nichols is a big fan of the Gardens and wants to contribute to their positive enhancement in a way that will benefit ALL of downtown Oklahoma City, including the 4,000 employees that will be working directly across the street.

Suffice it to say that any tie-in will have both aesthetic as well as programming elements. (And no the Crystal Bridge will not be rebuilt to look like the new building, although it will be getting a much-needed new "skin" in the next couple of years).

We really won't know any of what they are looking into until October (or so we are being told).

[Pete]

I've been saying for a long time the Myriad Gardens are very underutilized and all this sounds very promising.

Tying together what will be the largest downtown building with the largest current park certainly makes a lot of sense.

I worked downtown for years and never went to the gardens except during the Arts Festival.