The Boardwalk at Bricktown Tower is now proposed at 1907ft. That would make it the tallest building in the Americas if built. Plans now include an observatory towards the top.
At this point, I say send it. Prove to the world that Oklahoma City can have something as wild as this.
The 3 shorter ones, high probability. The tallest one, I'd say less than 10%. No doubt a taller building gets built there, but not 1907ft tall. Probably not even as tall as Devon Tower (844ft).
If I lived there I’d prefer 2-3 Devon towers or a bit shorter vs. one huge, oddball, out of place tower.
What is driving the growth in OKC? Immigrants? Industry? Affordable?
I know it’s a capital city with a large AF base and energy companies, but what else is driving the growth?
I'd say they closely correlate to the odds of a new Oklahoma energy boom. If they discover a way to print money there then it'll happen. Short of that?
I would guess it is cheaper than Texas and there is LOTS of land. They are getting a boost in population from Hispanics immigrating north from Texas. As mentioned, it's a capital city and Tinker AF base are a big factor and of course energy. They also have unified leadership and proud/united residents. That is the opposite of STL and one of our big issues.
I have been asking the questions about what is driving OKC's growth for a long time and have never gotten a satisfactory answer. I think it is a combination of factors.
1. Huge growth in the Hispanic population as immigrants both legal and illegal are priced out of the big Texas markets and following I-35 north. There is a strong infrastructure there of Spanish speaking schools, businesses, media, there are even Mexican and Guatamalan consulates.
2. The emptying out of rural Oklahoma. Many of the people moving to OKC are not coming from other parts of the country, they are coming from small towns an hour and a half away.
3. Tinker Air Force Base and associated industrial endeavors in aerospace. They can't point to huge relocations but it's more the 100 person, 200 person facilities that are growing. That really is a behemoth.
4. A burgeoning innovation cluster similar to CORTEX. They are building the Convergence Center and assorted labs etc around the OU Health Sciences Center. Again, this is probably not on the scale of what is happening here (it actually might be) but it is serving to keep bright minds at home when in my generation they automatically would have moved to the coasts.
5. Energy is cyclical but the recent announcement of the Chesapeake-Southwestern merger shows there is a lot of talent there and almost every office building has at least a couple of small energy companies. It cycles back and forth between natural gas and oil. Fracking was basically invented by Aubrey McClendon at Chesapeake. Morally dubious but then again so is Vegas.
6. Of course, government grows, along with health care. And it's a lot of little things, call centers, Amazon etc, Dell. There are some big companies headquartered there - but they tend to be more regional names like Love's Travel Stops, etc. Not sexy things but it's a little bit at a time. Here and there.
OKC citizens roll their eyes at the legislature exactly the way we do in STL, I assure you. At the end of the day, you roll your eyes but 99% of people do not move because of their state legislature.
The smaller towers (still 30-35 stories and in my mind a big deal) will get built. The absurd tower will not. And it shouldn't.
^ In coming from OKC, what do you like/love about STL. What would you love to have in OKC that STL has? Obviously the urban density, but what else would somebody from OKC envy about STL? Do you plan to stay here or is STL just a school or career stop? Just curious. I have friends here from Oklahoma that have planted roots here that love it. Hope you end up feeling that way as well.
Dogtown,
I have lived in St. Louis since 1997 when I graduated from Mizzou. So 26 years. I have now lived here longer than I lived in OKC although I still have many family, friends, and cultural ties there. I moved here for an internship that turned into a job. Since 1997 I have had 5 jobs, I have lived in multiple parts of the region (always St. Louis county but different parts of it). I finally found a wife (who was born and raised here) and would not anticipate moving, at least not until retirement, at that point, who knows?
I love living in St. Louis for many reasons. It has become my home. I think, however, that I got lucky in one sense. When I moved here I had connections from college, and I am a natural extrovert that jumped in to a social life and networking and nonprofit volunteering and have never felt the "cold shoulder" to non-natives that so endlessly gets discussed. I have seen and talked to other non-natives that feel very different from me. I know people that have moved from here because they never felt welcomed.
I could write a thesis on this topic but obviously St. Louis and OKC have pros and cons.
I wish STL had the community spirit that OKC has. You go down there and people are so excited to drive you around, show you what's new, they are so engaged and they don't "talk down" about the city/region. They used to, when I was young they did. But then the bombing happened and the MAPS program started and the city collectively looked around and said "uh, time to stop whining and get growing." That seems so absurdly simple and unquantifiable to border on the naive but I think that is a huge difference between OKC and STL. STL will endlessly debate things, different factions will just drone on and on. I have not sensed any real progress here since 1997. What progress has happened has been in spite of things or moving things around on a chessboard. OKC makes mistakes and moves faster, and maybe they don't take into account all the things they should, maybe they aren't "sophisticated" enough to think about what they "should" be doing, but they just kind of do it.
But STL has so many built-in inherent advantages over OKC. The urban environment, yes. The history, yes. I would say the corporate community is far stronger, the cultural community is stronger. The potential.
When you come down to it, STL is like the farthest west "old" city and OKC is the farthest north "sunbelt" city and all of the things that apply when you think about those distinctions apply.
It's like OKC has the intangibles and STL has the tangibles. But you need both.
My working day will not give me longer with this thesis, right now anyway.
I appreciate the feedback. Great stuff. All very accurate. Crazy thing… Saint Louis used to have so much pride and unity not that long ago. All of the divisions came around 2014 and beyond, at least in my experience. I can say, when I bring out of town folks here, I have nothing but pride, and every body I’ve brought through here is extremely impressed with the city.
I think the majority of people love this place, and are very proud of the good things and embarrassed about the bad things that seem to overshadow all the good at times.
I think the fact that OKC was able to expand to absorb its suburbs instead of being caught in the balkanization trap was extremely helpful. If you consider the MAPS program it is a fairly small sales tax increase but its metro wide and seems like the bulk of it is invested in and around downtown. It shows how regional investment in the regions core drives overall regional unity AND growth more than the "keep what you kill" model.
Oklahoma City cast its limits far out into farmland 70 years ago. I grew up near Enid Oklahoma, and when as a kid, we drove into OKC, we’d pass a brick sign that said “Oklahoma City Limits”. Right behind it, the state highway department put up a sign that read “Oklahoma City 19 miles”. I believe they cast their limits far into the someday suburbs to avoid what happened to St Louis.
I appreciate the feedback. Great stuff. All very accurate. Crazy thing… Saint Louis used to have so much pride and unity not that long ago. All of the divisions came around 2014 and beyond, at least in my experience. I can say, when I bring out of town folks here, I have nothing but pride, and every body I’ve brought through here is extremely impressed with the city.
I think the majority of people love this place, and are very proud of the good things and embarrassed about the bad things that seem to overshadow all the good at times.
I could be wrong as it could just be where i am at in life, but i actually feel like city pride has been on the rise for the last decade+. When i first moved to saint louis it was pretty easy to find people who remembered when Saint Louis WAS great but it was hard to find people who thought Saint Louis IS great. There are still plenty of haters and naysayers but in my perception there has a notable attitude shift.
Everybody's reality is different. There is definitely a strong contingent of people in the city proper and maybe the most inner-ring suburbs that have a "rally around the flag" mentality. (Literally, these are the types of people that own the city flag). Many of the denizens of Tower Grove, Soulard, The Hill, Midtown etc are fiercely loyal to St. Louis. They are the urban pioneers. And that's great.
There's another group of people, maybe mostly in the county (of course I generalize) that love St. Louis or certainly the idea of St. Louis, they wax poetic about Becky the Queen of Carpet, or their local restaurants and bars, they follow the St. Louis Starter Packs IG, we need these people, they will never leave and that's great but they really appreciate their particular "bubble" and their friends more than St. Louis at large.
The farther out from there you get, the more misperceptions exist. Some of which is due to racism, fear et al but just as much of it is geographic distance from the city. There's just no real bond and an inclination to believe the worst (maybe to justify their own past decisions about where to live)
In my 26 years of living here what I have noticed is that people "these days" (I sound old) seem to be a little less inclined (and maybe this is MY age talking) to leave their bubble. They may not hate St. Louis, in fact they may defend St. Louis to outsiders, maybe, but the attitude towards the region when they're home is more one of benign neglect than anything else. Maybe call it lethargy or self-absorption. That is a little different than say 20 years ago.
Everybody's reality is different. There is definitely a strong contingent of people in the city proper and maybe the most inner-ring suburbs that have a "rally around the flag" mentality. (Literally, these are the types of people that own the city flag). Many of the denizens of Tower Grove, Soulard, The Hill, Midtown etc are fiercely loyal to St. Louis. They are the urban pioneers. And that's great.
There's another group of people, maybe mostly in the county (of course I generalize) that love St. Louis or certainly the idea of St. Louis, they wax poetic about Becky the Queen of Carpet, or their local restaurants and bars, they follow the St. Louis Starter Packs IG, we need these people, they will never leave and that's great but they really appreciate their particular "bubble" and their friends more than St. Louis at large.
The farther out from there you get, the more misperceptions exist. Some of which is due to racism, fear et al but just as much of it is geographic distance from the city. There's just no real bond and an inclination to believe the worst (maybe to justify their own past decisions about where to live)
In my 26 years of living here what I have noticed is that people "these days" (I sound old) seem to be a little less inclined (and maybe this is MY age talking) to leave their bubble. They may not hate St. Louis, in fact they may defend St. Louis to outsiders, maybe, but the attitude towards the region when they're home is more one of benign neglect than anything else. Maybe call it lethargy or self-absorption. That is a little different than say 20 years ago.
I don't know, just my personal observation.
Well i don't know your cohort and I may be projecting, but maybe they just had kids. Reality is having kids tends to change your relationship to where you live, and i am not talking about the ever present school debate. When you have kids your life is wrapped up in their lives and their lives have very little to do with urban boosterism. Its all getting too and from school/work, sports leagues and clubs, etc. Maybe that's not an excuse if you consider your social responsibility but it is a reason.
Of course you are also right the further from the core the more negatively people veiw the city. Of course thats always been true and fwiw my perception is that its less pronounced than before.
I sort of hesitated to comment again about OKC and keep this thread going because honestly, the topic is very tangential to this board in general and the interests of the people participating. But this news article came out today and I thought - what the hell - I would be curious to get St. Louis's urbanists's thoughts.
Habitat for Humanity is building dozens of houses at once in a village in the OKC exurbs. The equivalent location to this would be New Melle or outermost Wildwood. It's in OKC proper but in an exurban school district. I can think of reasons this is a great idea and reasons it is a terrible one.
On the one hand, it's a long way from basic infrastructure like bus routes and even jobs, which would seem to be critical for the population being served. On the other hand, it's kind of nice that the "less well off" are not warehoused in less-advantaged parts of the city. It's a safe area and I'm glad there seems to be no NIMBY-ism. Good corporate support, But is it just "isolation" of another type and does the sprawl aspect outweigh everything else when there are many infill lots in the core of town that could be a good fit and need the density? There just seem to be a lot of cross-narratives at work. And does St. Louis do things like this, for better or worse?
The problem with St. Louis is not that the poor live in the city. Largely i think they should. Outside of housing/land value the cost of living in a city is lower than suburb or exurb. It more overall more sustainable. The issue is because of the fractal nature of St. Louis municipalities, the suburbs have found it useful to 'dump' their poor in the city where they can get resources, but fail to provide sufficient monetary support for those resources.
Cities like OKC, and other sprawling municipalities are sewing the seeds of their own destruction. These sprawling suburbs will for the most part be terrible places in 50-100 years. Sure there will still be the wealthy slices, much of it will be filled with networks of old pipes and crumbling roads that can't feasibly be replaced by the local tax base. Newer subdivisions today will be plagued with dilapidated and outdated housing stock, but the buildings are so cheaply constructed, the neighborhoods so soulless, and the location so far flung that there isn't much reason to gentrify. Plus the poor people stuck here will be trapped in car dependency unlike in the past where they
OKC is going to have a serious bill coming due. Same thing will happen to St. Louis County, but dialed up by regional population stagnation. That's why I scoff when I hear county people come out against a merger with the city because they don't want to "bail us out" when the math indicates that the city will be so much more sustainable (especially if the North Side comes back up to speed)
