That's probably the best thought I've read in this thread. When we're all dead and gone and our kids are too, something like this could really be a huge deal. Like some of the references about Eiffel throughout this thread, it was hated at first.

Here's something I was thinking about while reading this thread: Have our city leaders made a bad move with any of the urban renewal stuff in the past 15 years? I'm gonna say no. By and large, they've done a superb job of city planning and thinking ahead with their plans. Why do people on here suddenly think these guys are going to "get stupid."

Yes, the derrick in the video looks lame. But come on, initial concepts in videos and drawings almost universally look horrible. Do you REALLY believe they'll just build a huge oil derrick? Come on. That might be the initial idea, but it'll morph and change over the years and when its all said and done, it'll be a 1,200-foot tower that has a likeness to an old oil derrick, but it won't just stand out as one. It'll likely be something that is modern but tips its hat to the old look of the derrick. Some of y'all are freaking out way too much about this.

I, for one, say go for it. Come up with more concepts and see what happens. OKC didn't get where it is now by doing its best impression of Tulsa (eg, "Let's stand pat and do nothing... ever") over the past two decades. I'd love to see a 1,200-foot observation tower in OKC. Think of this just south of downtown spanning the river close to that central park-ish park that's gonna go from the river to Myriad Gardens.

There's no way in hell it would just be a giant derrick. The derrick would be implied in the design, but I bet it would end up with a lot of shiny glass and become a point of pride for OKC citizens.

And hey, if that is true about the kind of money the space needle brings in, we'd be stupid to just turn down that potential revenue stream. That's an amazing amount of jack to just go up a tower.