New Proposed Tower for OKC

[Jacobei]

Not sure if this has been brought up in another thread, but, what are the thoughts on this? I had assumed it would die months ago, but it keeps clearing hurdles.
If comment sections are to be believed, not a single person wants this.
https://kfor.com/news/local/okc-planning-commission-approve-plans-for-proposed-skyscraper-downtown/

[Hoss]

To me this just seems like a big 'look at me' project for OKC.

[buffalodan]

I'm sorta blown away that it is advancing like it has. Architects Orange seem way out of their league, but thorton tomasseti being the structural engineer makes me think they are taking a serious look at this. Between this and the vinita resort I'm kinda blown away by what people are spending money on.

[dbacksfan 2.0]

***sarcasm on***

I kind of look at this project as a phallic symbol from superiority complex driven OKC going back to the 70's as a sign to the rest of the state as to who is in charge, similar to the giant golden tower City Of Faith complex.

***sarcasm off***

It just seems like an overly ambitious project. Is there really that much demand for a project like this? What's the occupancy rate of Devon Tower?

I realize this will be a multi use building, but is there enough demand for over 1000 apartments? Is this going to be part of the new arena project? The reason I ask about the arena is that there is a trend where pro sports teams want stadiums/ball parks/arenas built as part of a retail/residential/business/entertainment district together as one project.

This is why the Phoenix Coyotes NHL team will more than likely be moving to Salt Lake City since they have been turned down by almost every city in the metro area. There most recent attempt was a sports village in Tempe with a $2 billion dollar price tag that the voters turned down, and there current attempt at buying state land at auction (the land that they are wanting to buy has been bought, foreclosed, and reclaimed by the state at least two times since 2008) borders Phoenix and Scottsdale and neither city is in a big hurry to provide utilities, and the fact that it is in a flood prone area doesn't help matters. Scottsdale already said "You're on your own" for water and sewer. Phoenix has told them that they are responsible for mitigating flood zone areas.

I take the following video with a grain of salt, but there is some truth to it. It's from 2020 discussing the stadium/arena district/village.

https://youtu.be/zczyEkkjvZk?si=JQESgB1d6fQmoW89

[shavethewhales]

There's a lot that has been said about it over on OKCTalk.

Basically, it looks like a bait and switch. The actual project that gets developed will be far smaller. The giant tower is to stir up interest and investment and will get phased out/sized down later on.

It's still going to be a potentially massive project for Bricktown/OKC. If you delete the giant tower, it's still several towers of apartments, office space, retail, etc.

[Hoss]

There's a lot that has been said about it over on OKCTalk.

Basically, it looks like a bait and switch. The actual project that gets developed will be far smaller. The giant tower is to stir up interest and investment and will get phased out/sized down later on.

It's still going to be a potentially massive project for Bricktown/OKC. If you delete the giant tower, it's still several towers of apartments, office space, retail, etc.

I think that happened with the BOK Tower here.  Propose it as nearly a clone of the World Trade Center (sizewize, same architect also), then when people say 'wha?' compromise.

[dbacksfan 2.0]

FWIW, I read on Wiki about the BOk tower and it says that John Williams vision was two 25 story towers to resemble WTC 1&2 but having double the expense in elevators made him go with a single tower.

I can see the bait and switch tactic, wouldn't surprise me at all. I will say that if it's built to it's proposed height you'll be able to know where OKC is from just about any direction, much like the giant cross in Groom TX. It's only 200 feet tall and I've spotted it at night from almost 20 miles away.

I looked up the renderings for the tower in relation to the proposed new arena and also see that it sits between the existing arena, the new one and the ball park and right off Bricktown, and none of the projects are reliant on the other.

I wonder if they will have motion sickness pill dispensers on the upper floors for windy days.