If only Chesapeake was HQ'd downtown

[Pete]

When CHK's current projects are complete, they will have constructed almost 900,000 square feet of new office space in OKC.

They also own several other buildings in the area, pushing their total close to 1.5 million.

To put that into perspective, that's more than Chase Tower & First National Tower *combined*.

It's also equivalent to about a 75 story building.


I believe one of the strong hinderances to downtown's growth is a lack of employers in the area. People gripe about retail and housing but downtown only has a little more than 5 million square feet of office space, and 1.5 of that is empty. And that's without the Kerr McGee building being dumped on the market.

It's a crying shame that Chesapeake is developing in one of the few areas of OKC that doesn't need the help, rather than driving what could be a huge building / renovation boom in downtown.

[JOHNINSOKC]

Exactly my thoughts....I think the suburban office park mentality has killed downtown office demand. Our big oil companies should be building towers downtown like they do in Houston. If it can work in Houston, as spread out as that city is, then it can work in OKC. Why are we so afraid of building downtown?? The absorption will happen because this is a more dynamic economy than what OKC had during the 1980's.

[Pete]

Ironically, the Chesepeake campus is getting so big that it's hard for employees to get from one building to another, especially in bad weather.

Downtown buildings are all close together and of course have the tunnel/skywalk system which makes getting around all the easier.

CHK is basically trying to recreate all the downtown ammenities -- cafeteria/restaurants, health club, services, parking garages -- on their private property instead of using or helping to enhance these things that already exist and benefit lots more people than just their employees.

It's not like their campus is out in Edmond... I'm sure most their employees would have about the same commute if they were located downtown.

[Kerry]

Many companies with campus environments realize the mistake they made. Unfortunately, many executives don't want to admit they made a mistake so other companies are destined for the same problem. CISCO Systems in San Jose has about 30 buildings spread across several hundred acres. Many of the employees I talked to hate it. If you have to attend a meeting you usually have to leave your building, catch the company shuttle, then travel several minutes to another building. Then you have to hope you didn't forget anything or the location changed.

From an economic standpoint I don't know who thought it would even make sense. With just the maitenance costs on multipe elevators, HVAC, electrical, telephone, and other components it seems that a CFO would say NO to the idea.