The campus would have made allot more sense and been allot more cool if they had built some kind of people mover to go around campus. A simple loop would have gotten the job done.
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Re: Chesapeake empire marches on
The campus would have made allot more sense and been allot more cool if they had built some kind of people mover to go around campus. A simple loop would have gotten the job done.
Participating Member
Re: Chesapeake empire marches on
That particular building has a big wine cellar in the basement.Originally Posted by OnlyOne
[center]
Excellent photos, Pete! What is the building in this picture? Also, their campus landscape is top-notch.
As I'm not familiar with construction techniques at all, I have a question regarding Chesapeake's new buildings all having large basements. For example, their RTC lab that is under construction has been nothing but a basement for at least a month. What is the point? They have constructed all of their buildings this way on the SmithandPickel webcams, and I would like to know more about it.
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Re: Chesapeake empire marches on
What would be the point of a wine cellar? I wouldn't think the employees are allowed to drink on campus. Is this another perk for the CEO?
Participating Member
Re: Chesapeake empire marches on
Just reading through Pete's last few postings.. Why in the world did they not design Classen Curve to face the street?
Participating Member
Re: Chesapeake empire marches on
I am not sure if I can explain it correctly, but instead of a "suburban" strip mall design facing the street with ample parking in front, in one article they stated the design was to put a modern twist on the pedestrian friendly main street/downtown shopping experience. Where stores are across the street from each other. Once inside the place, the buildings do "face the street". Just from the outside it doesn't look that way.
Owner / Administrator
Re: Chesapeake empire marches on
I also think they didn't want the storefronts looking out onto a graveyard.
One other thing I meant to mention, just navigating your car into and around that place is bizarre. You turn in at a weird angle near Whole Foods, and that Triangle parking lot is really nonsensical too.
Rand Elliott does some good work but just giving him this massive retail and office project when he had never done anything like this in the past was clearly not the right move. The way everything flows and how the various areas relate to one another is very, very poor.
From campus to CC isn't that far but due to the layout, I just don't think people walk even on the nicest day.
Participating Member
Re: Chesapeake empire marches on
CNG station accident spooks residents
By Brianna Bailey
Journal Record
Oklahoma City reporter - Contact 405-278-2847
Posted: 08:03 PM Monday, June 18, 2012
OKLAHOMA CITY – Longtime NW 49th Street resident JoEllen Aaron’s flower-lined front porch overlooks a site near NW 50th Street and N. Western Avenue, where Chesapeake Energy Corp. wants to build a modern-looking, 24-hour CNG fueling station and convenience store she claims would bring excessive traffic and noise to her neighborhood.
Designed by noted local architect Rand Elliott, the 20-pump fueling station would offer gasoline and diesel fuel, as well as compressed natural gas. Chesapeake purchased a much-smaller Conoco station and a car wash at NW 50th and Western several years ago for the planned fueling station and has since demolished the buildings. Plans for site submitted to city planners show at least three buildings for the development, including a convenience store.
“We don’t know why they are trying to do this in the middle of a neighborhood when they own land all over the city,” Aaron said.
Her husband, Henry Aaron, also worries about safety. On Sunday afternoon, firefighters responded to a report of a loud boom at the site of a Chesapeake-owned fueling station operated by OnCue Express at the corner of NW 49th Street and N. Western.
The Aarons returned home on Sunday afternoon to find Oklahoma City firefighters and Chesapeake Energy security cordoning off the site a few doors down from their home.
“That’s a little more excitement than I need,” Henry Aaron said.
The boom residents reported was caused by a leak in a fuel line on a bus refueling at the CNG station, said Brian Stanaland, a battalion chief for the Oklahoma City Fire Department.
Residents in the neighborhood protested plans for the larger Chesapeake fueling station to the Oklahoma City Planning Commission in May, where commissioners raised concerns about the development and passed the issue onto the City Council without recommending denial or approval for the station. At the meeting, Chesapeake representatives vowed to pay to have Oklahoma City close NW 49th Street to through traffic to keep cars and trucks from the station off the residential street.
The City Council is slated to consider plans for the CNG station in July.
Plans for the gas station, which would be operated under the brand name Peake, is one of a handful of CNG stations that Chesapeake subsidiary Peake Fuel Solutions plans to open around the city.
Jim Gipson, a spokesman for Chesapeake, declined to comment on the company’s CNG station plans. Chesapeake Energy also has plans to build a CNG station near the southwest corner of N. Pennsylvania Avenue and NW Expressway across from Penn Square Mall, according to residents on N. Barnes Avenue. A company with ties to Chesapeake has purchased an entire block of homes on N. Barnes, off N. Pennsylvania, paying more than double the listed market value of the properties, according to county assessor records.
Chesapeake Energy has plans to open several CNG fueling stations in Oklahoma City with the Peake brand name and will use the stations to educate the public on the benefits of CNG, CEO Aubrey McClendon told shareholders on June 8 at the company’s annual meeting.
Chesapeake also announced in March that its affiliate, Peake Fuel Solutions, would partner with GE to build 250 small, modular CNG fueling stations called CNG in a Box beginning this fall.
VIP Member
Re: Chesapeake empire marches on
Not that I care to defend all of McClendon's actions, but his dad started the company and he has run it ever since. He has a bit more right to have perks than most CEO's in the US though it seems he's clearly pushed the envelope. And, in case you weren't aware of it, bidness is done quite often over drinks.
Re: Chesapeake empire marches on
Rand very clearly comes from the, "I like to give my clients a short walk from door to parking," camp of architecture.
Participating Member
Re: Chesapeake empire marches on
Sorry, that gives him no more right to abuse his power. When you are a public company, most of the "I'll do whatever I want" attitude should have gone out the window.
Also, Larry Nichols dad started Devon and then he took it over. He seems to understand reasonableness.
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Re: Chesapeake empire marches on
AM is a huge wine collector.
Participating Member
Re: Chesapeake empire marches on
Are you saying McClendon's dad started Chesapeake? From everything I have heard it was founded by McClendon and Tom Ward. Part of the problem is he still runs it like it was his private company and does not have to answer to shareholders.
Platinum Member
Re: Chesapeake empire marches on
this is not in the middle of a neighbor hood ....... the property is zoned C-3 which lets lots and lots of much more intrusive uses
Owner / Administrator
Re: Chesapeake empire marches on
I heard a very interesting anecdote from someone who would know...
He said that McClendon has very much to say in not only the development of their various properties but also the planning of them. A recent Reuters article gave several examples of him getting into the details of lots of things; whether he's a controlling micro-manager or merely very thorough depends on your perspective I suppose.
I was told that the proposed redevelopment of NH Plaza (which was ultimately rejected by the city of NH) was pretty much his vision. That he sketched out his ideas.
I have the feeling that Rand Elliott is often left trying to make things work after Aubrey comes up with a basic plan. It would certainly explain why AKM and CHK use Rand exclusively.
Re: Chesapeake empire marches on
Were there ever renderings for what the redeveloped Nichols Hills Plaza would look like according to Aubrey's vision?
Owner / Administrator
Re: Chesapeake empire marches on
I know they met with tenants there several years back and showed them something that indicated demolishing the south portion and pushing the development all the way to 63rd, with some living units above.
But they were careful not to distribute anything and just recently, their lead counsel said they never had any intention of razing the south section as a way of deflecting criticism for booting Crescent Market and the lunch counter.
The NH Plaza tenants used to have a FB group and when that statement was made, they all pointed out the previous meeting where that exact idea had been discussed.
If you haven't noticed, they don't ever release renderings, even of the recently finished projects and those that are well under construction. Can't find any recent ones on Rand Elliott's website either and when I asked him about it, he referred me to their PR firm who never returned my emails or calls. I told him, "These are buildings that are halfway finished. Why can't you just release the renderings of what they will look like when complete?" He said, "You need to talk to the Gooden Group about that." I've learned that's CHK code for "No one is going to talk to you about this."
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Re: Chesapeake empire marches on
I saw renderings very early on. It was pretty impressive. Three stories, with residential on the third floor. The buildings were half-timbered, completely brick and very much Tudor in appearance, which would have matched with Nichols' original vision, the demolished gas station at the Plaza, etc. It reminded me very much of the Liberty of London store, only in brick.
Owner / Administrator
Re: Chesapeake empire marches on
betts, when/where did you see this?
Participating Member
Re: Chesapeake empire marches on
Apologies to thunder...
I also saw renderings of NHP similar to what Betts described. It was perhaps two years ago and in one of the local papers. Very impressive.
Owner / Administrator
Re: Chesapeake empire marches on
Chesapeake Fall Threatens Oklahoma Real Estate Fire Sale: Energy
2012-07-11 23:00:01.5 GMT
By John Helyar and David Wethe
July 12 (Bloomberg) -- Chesapeake Energy Corp., whose $805 million investment in Oklahoma City’s land and buildings has helped reduce commercial real estate vacancies, threatens to collapse the market as it faces a cash squeeze and seeks to sell assets.
The second-largest U.S. natural-gas producer has spent $448.7 million to build a 120-acre (50-hectare) headquarters campus in the northwestern part of the city and an additional $356.7 million to develop three nearby retail centers and buy office buildings and more land, according to Peter Brzycki, a former Oklahoma City real estate broker who tracks the company’s properties.
While a sell-off of its commercial property may please the company’s investors, who have seen share prices decline as Chesapeake struggles to fill a cash-flow shortfall, a quick divestiture would also depress Oklahoma City’s office market, local real estate professionals said.
If something were to happen to Chesapeake, the whole northwestern market would collapse,” said Don Karchmer, a local developer and investor who’s been involved with some of the company’s real estate activities. “The whole community has a fear of what could happen. It would be a huge hurt.”
Chesapeake, the second-largest private employer in Oklahoma City, is seeking to sell as much as $14 billion in assets in 2012 to raise cash. Its shares have declined 14 percent this year as gas prices fell and after reports that Chief Executive Officer Aubrey McClendon was getting personal loans from companies that were also financing Chesapeake.
The Oklahoma City properties aren’t part of Chesapeake’s planned divestiture program, said Michael Kehs, a company spokesman.
No Sale
We use our real estate every day, so it’s not for sale,” he said. Kehs said Brzycki’s tally of spending on Chesapeake’s campus was low and the figure for other real-estate development was high. He declined to comment on the total investment number.
Investors, including billionaire Carl Icahn, have called for the company to get rid of assets that aren’t central to its energy production business.
“You’ve got a cash crunch, and you’re not a real estate developer,” said David Dreman, chairman of Dreman Value Management Inc. in Jersey City, New Jersey, which controls about 1 million Chesapeake shares. “If I had a cash crunch and I had really good wells and very promising property, I don’t think I’d be in the restaurant business.”
Leading Recovery
Chesapeake’s real estate holdings include shopping centers and land on which a restaurant co-owned by McClendon operates.
In recent years, Chesapeake has helped to cushion Oklahoma City from the nation’s recession and tepid recovery. The city’s 4.5 percent unemployment rate was the lowest of any metropolitan area with a population over 1 million, according to a May survey by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Chesapeake had 5,000 local employees at the end of 2011, the city’s second-largest private employer after Integris Health.
The company has led a recovery of vacancy rates for top- tier office space in the city to “near pre-recession levels,”according to a report by broker Cushman & Wakefield Inc. The market’s 11.2 percent vacancy rate during the first three months of the year represents a 1.6 percentage point decline from a year earlier, it said. Less inventory has increased average Class A office rent to $21 a square foot.
Kerr-McGee Lessons
The $67 million Chesapeake spent to acquire three office buildings in the latter half of last year accounted for 75 percent of Oklahoma City’s total transactions in that real estate segment.
Now the company faces an estimated cash shortfall of $18.6 billion by the end of 2013, according to Alembic Global Advisors. Chesapeake has lost about $7 billion in market value in the past year amid falling energy prices and shareholder unrest about McClendon’s personal stakes -- and related debts – in company wells. The board last month replaced McClendon as chairman and named four new directors.
*Larkin Warner, a retired Oklahoma State University economics professor who lives near Chesapeake’s campus, recalls the departure of Kerr-McGee Corp., the Oklahoma energy company co-founded by McClendon’s great-uncle Robert Kerr that was bought by Houston-based Anadarko Petroleum Corp. in 2006.
“The day you begin to think the last few years are going to go on forever, that’s when you’re in trouble,” said Warner. For Kerr-McGee, “what happened was like the smile on the Cheshire Cat. It just gradually shrunk.”
Assessed Values
The company, which has leased 16 million acres of land nationally for drilling, has also been aggressive in its back yard, accumulating 3 million square feet of office space and paying top dollar for properties.
Chesapeake “routinely paid two to five times the current assessed value for virtually everything they acquired, and then added substantial construction costs on top of that,” said Brzycki, who has tracked 445 Chesapeake real estate purchases since 2005 using county and municipal records and who posts his findings on an okctalk.com forum.
Since 2005, the company has spent $152 million to acquire and upgrade office buildings away from its campus. Those 12 properties’ assessed value is now $106.2 million, according to municipal and county records. Chesapeake also put $152 million into development plans for three retail complexes, which now are 27 percent vacant and have an assessed value of $50.9 million.
Attracting Talent
While Oklahoma City commercial building valuations are based partly on comparable properties’ recent sales, according to the county assessor’s website, their assessed value doesn’t necessarily reflect market value.
Kehs said the main purpose of Chesapeake’s campus and adjacent retail development “is to create a work environment that is able to help us attract the best talent.” He declined to discuss the company’s real estate investment performance and said its office costs are lower than other large employers.
Chesapeake bought three tracts of land just south of its headquarters for $1.2 million in 2004. Within a year, it sold the parcels in two transactions for a total of $865,000, a 28 percent loss. The sale in part was in the form of a swap to add land to its campus.
Chesapeake spent $38.2 million in 2011 to buy an office building called Caliber Center, which had sold for $20.1 million four years earlier. The company’s $7 million purchase of an office building called Possum Creek in 2010 was two-and-a-half times what the property fetched five years earlier.
Nichols Hills
McClendon, who began his career as a land man buying up drilling rights, has been closely involved in Chesapeake’s real estate activities. He’s personally contacted owners of properties of interest to Chesapeake and sketched out plans to redevelop Nichols Hills Plaza on a paper napkin while lunching with then-tenant Robert Pemberton, owner of the Crescent Market.
That grocery store’s departure is one reason this effort hasn’t gone well with some residents and officials of Nichols Hills, an upscale suburb across the street from Chesapeake’s campus where McClendon and his wife and other prominent families reside.
After spending $66.5 million to purchase a variety of properties there, Chesapeake’s plans have been blocked by town officials concerned that a makeover of the retail center will cause shops to close for an extended period. The community of Nichols Hills counts on sales tax receipts from merchants for the majority of municipal revenue.
Whole Foods
The company also has met opposition from Nichols Hills Plaza patrons, some of whom staged a rally last October. The patrons were protesting the demise of two longstanding businesses, including Crescent Market. Pemberton, who said his family-owned business dates back to the Oklahoma land run in 1889, couldn’t compete with the new Whole Foods Market Inc. store in a Chesapeake-owned shopping center.
“Aubrey saw himself creating a new kind of market that Oklahoma City is ready for and there’s some logic to that, but it hasn’t worked out that way,” said Karchmer, the real estate developer who considers himself an admirer of McClendon.
For now, Chesapeake continues to expand its headquarters campus. Four construction tower cranes overlook eight new buildings and earthmoving equipment lays groundwork for more.
A 40-foot (12-meter) pile of dirt towers over the back yard of Charlie Maupin, a 63-year-old landscaper. Chesapeake has bought up scores of homes to expand its campus, and his could be next. The house, built with his hands, once looked out on trees. It now faces a clay-colored retention pond.
The landscaper said he’s gotten occasional calls from Chesapeake’s CEO asking if he’s ready to move.
Maupin expects to be compensated fairly by Chesapeake when he does move, and he thinks McClendon will turnaround the company. “He’s going to pull rabbits out of his hat for the next 10 years.”
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Re: Chesapeake empire marches on
I may have just missed it, but what restaurant does McClendon co-own?
Owner / Administrator
Re: Chesapeake empire marches on
49% owner in Deep Fork Grill, a property Chesapeake bought at many multiples of assessed value.
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Re: Chesapeake empire marches on
It would be interesting to see how the triangle and classen curve would suddenly build out if they were under different management.
Also the article talks about them breaking new ground at campus for new buildings. Parking Garage #5 was the last thing I was aware they started. I have been assuming it will be the last.
Participating Member
Re: Chesapeake empire marches on
And then has chk use Deep Fork for about $500,000 or more in catering services in one year. Just another way he's taken company money and put it in his own pocket. Just like he did when he bought the landscaping company Total Enviroment and then uses them to do all of chk landscaping. Just like he did when he had chk buy the naming rights to the arena putting another $3-400,000 a year in his own pocket.
Platinum Member
Re: Chesapeake empire marches on
again he makes no money from the arena naming rights ..
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