What's happening at Sheridian and Hudson?

[CuatrodeMayo]

Even if it wasn't a convention hotel, the footprint of the ground floor of a large hotel is as large or larger than the footprint of an office tower.

Your data is impressive. And it proves my point. If you look at the date these tower were built, the newest towers have the largest FSR and the older buildings have the smallest. A MODERN office tower will have about 15 ft FSR.

I am participating in the design of a building containing offices, condos, and a 600 room hotel. I do this every day of my life. I know.

[HOT ROD]

Actually its the other way around Cuatrode; older towers have higher FSRs than newer ones. It's the new ones which are mostly around 12 FSR or so.

15 FSR is HUGE (Chase is 14 and it's huge). I'd think they would want to squeeze in more floors for more space then build an ornimental edifice.

Here is an example of how I dispute your claim (about hotel space). Let's say the average office skyscraper of any signature height has a footprint of 17,000 square feet (for prospective - I believe Chase footprint is 15,000 sq ft per floor whereas BOK in Tulsa is 20,000, bottom third of Sears is over 50,000 sq ft per floor).

Now, let's assume the average hotel room to be 300 square feet (pretty good size room 15X20). In this simple example, excluding the elevator space and other closet/maid space; if you do a simple division - you'd get 56 rooms per floor. Name me ONE highrise hotel in Oklahoma or even in TX that has 56 rooms per floor. I can't think of any other than perhaps Adams Mark in downtown dallas, and it is a huge anomoly.

Also take note, buildings with high FSR's tend to be institutional in nature. That said, BankOklahoma in downtown's 19 FSR is CRAZY!!!

Im not debating whether you do this for a living, perhaps it is something you might not considered. Perhaps also you may not have considered that I might do urban planning as a living too.??

I do agree that highrise hotels do have bottom level floors which often have a larger footprint than an office tower minus podium, but my point is these type of hotels are not the norm and certainly we might never see this type in Oklahoma (but I dont want to be a naysayer - heck, build it).

[brianinok]

Hotels are going to have a larger footprint. A large convention hotel might have 100,000 sq ft of meeting space, most often on one floor. Plus, figure a huge lobby, restaurants, retail, hotel offices, and back-of-the-house. Even if you put all of that on 3 floors (which would be a lot of floors to spread that out between), you are probably looking at minimum 50,000 sq ft on each of those floors. The hotel room floors above this will of course be smaller, but the first couple floors of a large convention hotel are quite large.

[Kerry]

Just for fun I looked on Google Earth to get an idea of footprint sizes. The convention center Marriott in downtown Tampa has a foot print about 3 times larger then the office building I worked in 3 blocks away. The downtown Tampa Hyatt was also about 3 times larger than my office building.

SunTrust Financial Centre, Tampa
Tampa Marriott Waterside, Tampa

[CuatrodeMayo]

Actually its the other way around Cuatrode; older towers have higher FSRs than newer ones. It's the new ones which are mostly around 12 FSR or so.

Do yourself a favor and add a date to each building in OKC and compare. modern mechanical systems are larger and more complex and require larger intersitial space.

FNC 13.5 FSR (1931)
City Place 13 1/3 FSR (1931)
Oklahoma Tower 14 FSR (1982)
KMG 13.1 FSR (1973)
Valliance 14.59 FSR (a big mofo) (1984)
Bank of Oklahoma 19.375 FSR (a huge mofo) (1972)
Leadership 14 FSR (1984)
Regency 12 FSR (1966)
Founders 13.75 FSR (1963)
Colcord 10.3 FSR (1909)

And a few more which you cleverly left out:

Chase 13.8 (1971)
Mid-America Tower 13.7 (1980)
Union Plaza 14 (1982)
The Classen 11.9 (1967)
Dowell Center 11.1 (1927)

Here is an example of how I dispute your claim (about hotel space). Let's say the average office skyscraper of any signature height has a footprint of 17,000 square feet (for prospective - I believe Chase footprint is 15,000 sq ft per floor whereas BOK in Tulsa is 20,000, bottom third of Sears is over 50,000 sq ft per floor).

Now, let's assume the average hotel room to be 300 square feet (pretty good size room 15X20). In this simple example, excluding the elevator space and other closet/maid space; if you do a simple division - you'd get 56 rooms per floor. Name me ONE highrise hotel in Oklahoma or even in TX that has 56 rooms per floor. I can't think of any other than perhaps Adams Mark in downtown dallas, and it is a huge anomoly.

I do agree that highrise hotels do have bottom level floors which often have a larger footprint than an office tower minus podium, but my point is these type of hotels are not the norm and certainly we might never see this type in Oklahoma (but I dont want to be a naysayer - heck, build it).

They are not the norm? Look up aerial photography of the two fairly recent downtown OKC hotels, the Renaissance and the Sheraton. You will notice that, in fact, they both have a tower AND a podium. And while you are at it, notice that with the exception of Leadership Square, the footprints of those two hotels are equal to or larger than the footprints of the office towers in the CBD.