Boeing

[mcca7596]

I guess it just made more sense for them to be closer to Tinker; another new tower would obviously have been nice though. Who knows, the Chamber could have pitched it to them...?

[Kerry]

Long Beach is further from Tinker than downtown OKC is.

[SkyWestOKC]

Why would Boeing locate to downtown? Seriously. If Tinker was at the Downtown Airpark location, sure. But it's not. Aerospace engineering requires synergy. Boeing won't be making all of these parts or designs. An airplane is not built by one manufacturer. You have dozens upon dozens of parts suppliers, all working on the same project. Some specialize in just one part, others specialize in computer systems. Locating in downtown away from Tinker, would put Boeing at a huge efficiency disadvantage. Having engineers and suppliers constantly driving back and forth between the base to brainstorm, discuss, and design what they are doing is stupid. Tinker is the best place for any aviation engineering office to be located in the metro, or even region. It's stupid to purposely locate away from that. Just like energy companies try to locate near each other because of synergy, so do aviation support and engineering companies. It's in the best interest of Boeing, Tinker AFB, Oklahoma City, and the State to have Boeing expand at Tinker, not downtown OKC. Having Boeing expand at Tinker will attract other suppliers who work with them to locate nearby, only furthering the development of that area with high-paying engineering jobs.

[Snowman]

If you go back just a few years we were fighting to keep Tinker off the Base Realignment & Closure lists, if any have worked in government longer than five years they will remember that. This project being moved here is another tangible reason to keep the base operating should another round be initiated, they also want the area to continue to be known for supporting the military more than average communities. Throwing road block in now seems like an unusual choice. Building downtown either splits their workforce or they have to build for twice as many people (replacing a fairly new building) and gaining a twenty mile round trip. What they gain seems mostly intangibles where it would have induce some real operational issues if part of the reason they are moving them here is to be near the work. Incentives only go so far, they are building on land they already own in a manor the city found acceptable fairly recently as a building of similar size is right next to the construction site. They have to have real reasons to move downtown; less area to build on, a more costly building, a longer build time, smaller floors, more elevator rides, more building design constraints, less option for expansion later, a twenty minute round trip, have your workforces work in completely different locations. What incentives are worth it, and given the budget issues if we could get buy without incentives why not.

[Kerry]

SkyWestOKC - my point was that these employees were/are in Long Beach and they seemed to be able to do their jobs just fine. What is the nearest Boeing maintenance facility to Long Beach? Why could they do their job in Long Beach but they can't do it in downtown OKC?

On edit: Answered my own questions.
I did a quick search and it appears they were doing this work at the Long Beach Airport. In that case it would make sense that the engineers retain their proximity to the actual maintenance after they move to OKC. With that in mind, downtown is not an option.

[HOT ROD]

i think it could have been a 10 storey tower to 'start' a new suburban CBD for Midwest City. ....

We need our suburbs to start investing in their downtowns, so they will serve as the critical mass point for metropolitan amenities, such as libraries, govt, and TRANSIT (Express/Commuter bus and rail to downtown OKC, regional hub for their city/part of the metro). ...

It would be nice to have some of the suburbs have a few highrises, not all need to be in OKC - just the tallest/largest. ...

[mcca7596]

I like you're idea HOT ROD.

[Snowman]

i think it could have been a 10 storey tower to 'start' a new suburban CBD for Midwest City. ....

We need our suburbs to start investing in their downtowns, so they will serve as the critical mass point for metropolitan amenities, such as libraries, govt, and TRANSIT (Express/Commuter bus and rail to downtown OKC, regional hub for their city/part of the metro). ...

It would be nice to have some of the suburbs have a few highrises, not all need to be in OKC - just the tallest/largest. ...

The thing about the suburbs of OKC and areas like this are land is cheap, and you can build more space if you make it shorter and wider. Plus many people often prefer to walk horizontally on one level than take more stares and elevator rides. Sure Devon and tall towers look muck cooler but as long as it is built well with jobs that are secure it is a big win. Companies do not blow money to make a skyline look good and if they did then that is dangerous for where they build because it can cause a collapse in the value of the buildings around it when they go under. What suburb are you proposing does not have a library? They all have government too. The historic downtown of the suburb I am in not event the best place for a hub of the current city as what it was then vs now is starkly different, plus their is much better spaces available that could be used for a hub near the current business zone or the major traffic areas for residential travel.

[Larry OKC]

If you go back just a few years we were fighting to keep Tinker off the Base Realignment & Closure lists, if any have worked in government longer than five years they will remember that. This project being moved here is another tangible reason to keep the base operating should another round be initiated, they also want the area to continue to be known for supporting the military more than average communities. ...

There was an article (think it came out during the last Tinker Bond election) that showed the previous rounds and "Save Tinker" was pretty much a sham. Tinker was never in danger of being seriously considered for shut down. This came either from the former commander of Tinker or our congressional delegation. Can't recall exactly who it was but definitely someone who would have been "in the know".

To clarify, I was one of those that voted for every "Save Tinker" vote that was put forth, until that info came out.

[G.Walker]

I remember a recent article Steve wrote about potential employers interested in coming to Oklahoma City, the information the Okc chamber presented one aviation company wanting to locate it's 600 employees downtown? Yes, it makes more sense to locate near Tinker, but locating downtown would have worked. Commute time from Tinker to downtown via freeway is 15min. An additional 550 employees downtown, would help lure more economic development, provide more traffic to downtown business, and help promote C2S. A good location for the a Boeing high rise could have been the old Ford site, Fred Hall could have sold land to Boeing at a crack head price. The new Boeing high rise at the old Ford site, would have been in proximity of new convention center and hotel, attracting aviation/aerospace conventions, workshops, and seminars.

[SkyWestOKC]

I'm not sure you understand how important it is for these jobs to have close access to Tinker....

Also "an aviation company" could be anything. It doesn't necessarily mean a defense contractor (which does need close access to the base, and other contractors/subcontractors), it could be Cessna, Cirrus Design, Piper, a small regional airline HQ or operations command center, etc. It could be anything.

Also, this article doesn't state whether or not that company is interested downtown. http://newsok.com/economic-developme...rticle/3535769

And, last but not least, aviation companies rarely locate to downtown cores. Save for just a handful of HQ's (Boeing main HQ, United main HQ.....that's about all I can think of, Continental used to be, but they moved in with United at Chicago). Other than that, airlines locate near airports, as that benefits them the best). Have you seen American's HQ in Dallas, guess what, it's right next to the airport and is not some tall tower, but a meek multi-story building.

Not everything is appropriate for downtown, aviation companies just don't do that.

[earlywinegareth]

I work at Tinker. What you have is several defense contractors with offices surrounding the base. Boeing chose to build its first building next to Northrup Grumman's just outside the Air Depot gate. Right around the corner is L-3, another major base contractor. Then you have another dozen or so smaller contractors scattered around who do specialized technical work for the base. It is important to locate near the base for easy access of contractors to the base and base workers to the contractor location. Boeing, for instance, hosts probably 50 conferences per year at its current off-base building that are attended by base managers. I've been there half a dozen times this past year. Their current bldg seems to be 1/3 conference space, so they planned it this way. Northrup-Grumman is prime contractor for the B-2 Bomber whose program management offices are a short distance inside the Air Depot gate. They also have numerous meetings with base personnel.

In sum, their sole customer is the US Air Force and to maintain high customer relations, they need to operate in close proximity.

[plmccordj]

I agree with earlywinegareth. I also work in one of the program offices at Tinker and go to the Boeing facility here and San Antonio on a regular basis. There are program management reviews (PMR) at Boeing all the time. There are times that we have to go over there to drop off some documentation and then get back to work at Tinker. Boeing employees come to our office frequently as well. Proximity is important because you can eat up a lot of time with the base 25 MPH speed limit anyway ;-)

[BG918]

Can you imagine if Tinker had closed back in the 90's? It was on the BRAC list in 1989 and again in 1995.

[OKCRT]

Easy solution. High speed rail from MWC/Tinker to downtown. It doesn't have to be supersonic speeds but it should be a commute of 10 minutes max. Like the old saying goes. "Build it and they will come".

[SkyWestOKC]

Or it'd be easier and more cost-effective to have them all at one location. Why doesn't anyone want there to be a huge aviation industry focused inside the metro. Why does everyone want them scattered out?

[HOT ROD]

The thing about the suburbs of OKC and areas like this are land is cheap, and you can build more space if you make it shorter and wider. Plus many people often prefer to walk horizontally on one level than take more stares and elevator rides. Sure Devon and tall towers look muck cooler but as long as it is built well with jobs that are secure it is a big win. Companies do not blow money to make a skyline look good and if they did then that is dangerous for where they build because it can cause a collapse in the value of the buildings around it when they go under. What suburb are you proposing does not have a library? They all have government too. The historic downtown of the suburb I am in not event the best place for a hub of the current city as what it was then vs now is starkly different, plus their is much better spaces available that could be used for a hub near the current business zone or the major traffic areas for residential travel.

you missed the point, I never said that suburbs of OKC need tall towers - if you read again, I said they need midrises to start new CBD's (instead of office parks) outside of downtown, while the tallest and most exclusive towers would remain in downtown. Dont think this happens in suburbs? See - Bellevue, WA. Clayton, MO. Denver Tech Center (which is a suburb of name Greenwood Village, IIRC).

OKC has the NW Business CBD and I want it to also grow, but I'd like to see some of the suburbs get into CBD development and put some mid-high rise density in their existing or new downtowns. The Boeing development, at 320K sq ft could have made a very nice 10-15 storey tower starting the new MWC CBD, imo. Still close to TIK but creating a new business center (instead of a new office park).

Also, I never said suburbs didn't already have libraries or community centers, I said the 'new' downtowns in suburbs would have NEW libraries/govt buildings and centers to make it a node for the region the suburb sits in as well as transit. Again, this is not a foreign idea if you travel to other cities, peer and larger (and in some cases, smaller).

I think we all agree that downtown obviously needs to be #1 and NW will always probably be #2, but I don't see any reason why Norman, Edmond, Yukon, and MWC couldn't focus on their downtowns (or actually build one in MWC's case) to be urban suburban alternatives with amenities I mentioned.

[Spartan]

I don't know if you realize this, but there's really not that much money in OKC's suburbs compared to some of these other places such as: Sugar Land TX, The Woodlands TX, Plano TX, Irving TX, Clayton MO, Bellevue WA, and on and on...

Edmond is not the kind of suburb that builds grandiose things like The Woodlands. Memorial Rd keeps coming close but development deals keep falling through up there, and at the end of the day, strip mall crap keeps getting built instead.

I don't mean that rich people don't live in OKC. I think I made a similarly unrelated comment about old money in OKC and some people on this board misconstrued what I said in that way. So just to clarify, I mean that these OKC suburbs mostly do not have an economy of their own that powers demand for these kinds of high-intensity development projects. Furthermore, it is such a cultural norm in OKC for a company to be based in a ranch-style office park that building the kinds of things you see in The Woodlands or Tyson's Corner is not going to happen for a long time, maybe forever.

Downtown OKC and the inner city is the only shot OKC has at looking like a real city with regards to development.

What this has to do with Boeing--absolutely nothing.

[plmccordj]

Tinker has never been a serious candidate for closing. The only reason they were on the list AT ALL was so that local politicians could use the issue at election time. They wanted to be on the record saying they fought for Tinker. This whole "save Tinker" mantra that we have been hearing for the last 20 years has been a complete fraud. I work at Tinker and never for a moment felt that it was in true danger of being closed. This guy named Burpee use to be in charge at Tinker and once he was out, he had political aspirations. It seemed like every six months he was at the fore front crying that Tinker was on the chopping block. Pure fabrication at best.

[HOT ROD]

Bellevue didn't either, until recently.

In fact, the wealth is really in Redmond (full of office parks, which is a suburb of Bellevue and the rich folks (Gates/Ballmer etc live in Medina, another Bellevue suburb). Bellevue NOW serves as the anchor city of the Seattle/Puget Sound Eastside, and it had very little to do with the wealth/companies but moreso to do with great urban planning and desire of the City of Bellevue to use it's geographic position. ....

This is what I recommend for some of OKC's suburbs, invest in (or build) their downtown instead of just putting up more office parks. I know for a fact that both Bellevue, Tysons, Greenwood Village, and Clayton started life similar to Edmond (and to some extent, Norman/MWC) as bedroom communities - but look at them now. No reason why Edmond can't benchmark those REGIONAL suburban CBD's.

(I highlighted for you, why those suburbs developed their own CBD's, and it has nothing to do with the wealth of those cities. ...)

It has to do with Boeing, because I had suggested that 320K sq feet would have made a nice little tower (ala Mid-America tower) for what could have been MWC's new CBD if that suburb had the planning foresight to zone/approve it. Instead of the flat, six storey parks.

[bombermwc]

MWC isn't really a high-rise area....and there's no CBD there. The closest you get is the 8 floor hospital (which sucks) and a medical office tower (4 floors)...that's "height" in MWC. Granted, 8 is higher than most other burbs, but it's a hospital so it doesn't really count that much. Plus, the hospital has to go up because they can't afford to buy out the land around to go out.

But beyond that, it should be no surprise to anyone around Tinker to see a company consolidate their office space. Boeing used to be spread all over creation in little offices here and there on/off base. This way the employees are able to work TOGETHER more efficiently and now will be able to that much better with the new employees. There are still plenty of companies with offices around MWC in the onsie twosie plan...Pratt & Whitney, Lockheed Martin, Northup Grumman, etc the list goes on and on. But we're not talking offices of 100 people folks....most of the off-base offices are small...like the couple dozen or so people range. This isn't Wichita where you've got thousands of engineers and whatnot around town.

OKC should thank it's lucky stars Boeing decided to come here. The MROTC as well as the revamped GM plant are huge assets for Tinker and it's contractors. One thing I'm surprised is that the MROTC hasn't expanded beyond the first 3 hangers...it's supposed to be something like a dozen or more. But when GM came into the picture, you saw land freed up and at least one new hanger is being built ON base....which had been too full to do anything with.

And there's also still lots of land in the area to build more contract offices like Boeing's. ESPECIALLY south of the base (NOT MWC). If you also weren't aware, the 59th and Air Depot gate (which is near this facility) is also home to the new Medical Center on Tinker. It's not the "butt-end" of the base these days.

[Kerry]

Before you guys go to far down the road of where Boeing should or should not locate and its promity to runways, you need to fire up Google Earth, hover over Long Beach/Huntington Beach California, and do a serach on Boeing. They are located in everything from airport hangers to mid-rise gleaming office towers nowhere near an airport.

[Spartan]

Tinker has never been a serious candidate for closing. The only reason they were on the list AT ALL was so that local politicians could use the issue at election time. They wanted to be on the record saying they fought for Tinker. This whole "save Tinker" mantra that we have been hearing for the last 20 years has been a complete fraud. I work at Tinker and never for a moment felt that it was in true danger of being closed. This guy named Burpee use to be in charge at Tinker and once he was out, he had political aspirations. It seemed like every six months he was at the fore front crying that Tinker was on the chopping block. Pure fabrication at best.

I think Dick Burpee was always arguing that Tinker would either grow or die. That seems to be a popular mantra in many different economic engines around OKC. Grow or die.

So Burpee made sure Tinker had support to grow.

[SkyWestOKC]

Before you guys go to far down the road of where Boeing should or should not locate and its promity to runways, you need to fire up Google Earth, hover over Long Beach/Huntington Beach California, and do a serach on Boeing. They are located in everything from airport hangers to mid-rise gleaming office towers nowhere near an airport.

It has nothing to do with direct airfield access. It has to do with being close to the customer, and being close to your contractors and subcontractors. If all of the Tinker contractors and subcontractors that Boeing does joint-development with were located downtown, it'd be stupid to locate anywhere but downtown. But since Tinker is the hub where all of these other contractors locate, it makes sense to locate nearby.

A lot of you are taking a very narrow approach to looking at this. Can't be happy that 500 high paying, well respected jobs are moving into town. Oh no, they might as well not even come here since they are building a building that isn't very tall or in the downtown core.

A win is a win. They aren't tearing anything important down, they are replacing grass with a 6 story building. They are moving 500 high paying jobs into the city. They might have even more moves planned for OKC in the future, as hinted in their press release. I'm sure Boeing looked at it, and decided that staying close to the people they do business with everyday makes the most financial sense.

[OSUFan]

Before you guys go to far down the road of where Boeing should or should not locate and its promity to runways, you need to fire up Google Earth, hover over Long Beach/Huntington Beach California, and do a serach on Boeing. They are located in everything from airport hangers to mid-rise gleaming office towers nowhere near an airport.

How is that set up working for Long Beach?