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.

[Jeff P]

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.

Actually it was just the original designers' idea for it to be two 25-story towers that straddled Boston Ave. As the story goes, John Williams looked at the model, picked up one of the towers and stacked it on top of the other and said, "let's do it like this instead" (Or something along those lines). So I don't think it was about the extra expense, I think it was just that he wanted one really tall building instead of two shorter ones.

As for the windy days, I don't think it will be that big of a deal. I've worked on the upper floors of the BOK Tower for 15+ years. The building most certainly sways in the wind... you can see it often because the blinds will gently sway back and forth... on really windy days you can see the water in the toilet bowls moving a bit. 

But in those ~15 years there has only been maybe 2-3 times that you could literally feel the building move; and it doesn't feel like you're on boat or something... it's just a very odd feeling... it's hard to describe really. I never felt sea-sick though, and I'm someone who will ALWAYS feel sea sick on a big boat.

[Red Arrow]

The building most certainly sways in the wind... you can see it often because the blinds will gently sway back and forth... on really windy days you can see the water in the toilet bowls moving a bit. 
But in those ~15 years there has only been maybe 2-3 times that you could literally feel the building move; and it doesn't feel like you're on boat or something... it's just a very odd feeling... it's hard to describe really. I never felt sea-sick though, and I'm someone who will ALWAYS feel sea sick on a big boat.

Better that it sways than breaks.    

[dbacksfan 2.0]

Actually it was just the original designers' idea for it to be two 25-story towers that straddled Boston Ave. As the story goes, John Williams looked at the model, picked up one of the towers and stacked it on top of the other and said, "let's do it like this instead" (Or something along those lines). So I don't think it was about the extra expense, I think it was just that he wanted one really tall building instead of two shorter ones.

Yeah, I was just going off what I read. You are probably closer to the truth and I was going off urban legend on Wiki

As for the windy days, I don't think it will be that big of a deal. I've worked on the upper floors of the BOK Tower for 15+ years. The building most certainly sways in the wind... you can see it often because the blinds will gently sway back and forth... on really windy days you can see the water in the toilet bowls moving a bit. 

But in those ~15 years there has only been maybe 2-3 times that you could literally feel the building move; and it doesn't feel like you're on boat or something... it's just a very odd feeling... it's hard to describe really. I never felt sea-sick though, and I'm someone who will ALWAYS feel sea sick on a big boat.

I spent three months back in the mid 90's doing work in the tower on 43, 44 and 45 for Vintage petroleum, and noticed the slight movement from time to time. Before that in the 80's I worked for a courier company and spend a lot of time in several buildings downtown and where I noticed it most was in the freight elevator vestibules at the tower because you could hear the cables moving. The one building I seemed to notice it the most in is One Gas. It has according shaped panels in the expansion joints and you can hear them creak and kind of feel the movement.

My comment about the one for OKC was at the proposed height you would be way above Williams and even with the smaller profile the higher up the more movent that's noticeable. It was a tongue in cheek comment about need Dramamine.