OG&E Energy Center

[dankrutka]

Seems like this would be a perfect cover story for the Gazette.

I keep thinking this with a lot of Pete’s posts now.

[Pete]

I’m kinda surprised you guys are shocked nothing is going in, I thought we figured that out like 3 years ago.

The basketball courts and soccer field is better than what is currently there. So baby steps I guess

OG&E has never so overtly said any development is completely off.

And this latest announcement basically says they don't plan to sell either.


It's not so much that this is anything new, it's more the brazenness of it all, demonstrating in remarkable fashion how the power brokers in this town (and OG&E and Pete Delaney are definitely that) don't have the slightest concern regarding accountability.

And why should they when they have the largest media company in the state to run PR for them?

[bchris02]

Who owns the land south of the Stage Center site? I know Milhaus proposed a 20 story mixed-used tower 4 years ago. This site is prime also, don't tell me OG&E owns that to.

People were enamored by Clayco's much more ambitious renderings for that lot so it was awarded to them. In hindsight, if Milhaus would have been awarded that there'd be a 20 story residential tower there now.

[HangryHippo]

People were enamored by Clayco's much more ambitious renderings for that lot so it was awarded to them. In hindsight, if Milhaus would have been awarded that there'd be a 20 story residential tower there now.

That's what really bums me out. We could have something other than two sports courts/fields.

[bchris02]

That's what really bums me out. We could have something other than two sports courts/fields.

Especially on the south lot. From my memory, only a few people on this site were actually supportive of the Milhaus proposal since the Clayco one was so much more ambitious and "sexy". If both lots were developed as Clayco originally intended, they would have had a much larger impact on the skyline than the Milhaus proposal. However, the Milhaus proposal, at the time, would have been financially viable and therefore would have been built. The complex that Clayco had proposed for both lots was always a pie in the sky proposal, not too different from some of the stuff proposed back during urban renewal.

[TheTravellers]

Nope. Sager is my first name and Michael is my middle name. Long story short, I’m a 19 year old from Conyers, Georgia that fell in love with OKC and decided to move there.

Cool, welcome to OKC and OKCTalk! Conyers looks pretty small, interesting move to here, I'll bet...

[G.Walker]

Being optimistic, the good that can come out of all this is that OCURA will do a new RFP for the lot south of the Stage Center lot. Since they know now OG&E is not pursuing any plans to develop either site. Being that the south lot was to be incorporated on the OG&E master plan.

[Pete]

^

OCURA will merely wait until OG&E is ready before they do an RFP.

[G.Walker]

But I thought the latest proposal for the TIF, OG&E had scrapped the south lot?

[Pete]

But I thought the latest proposal for the TIF, OG&E had scrapped the south lot?

I still think the city will hold it for them. The Myriad Gardens Foundation occupies a building there along with a few arts-related tenants.

[Geographer]

This is just another sad story in the long history of OKC loving to tear down iconic buildings in favor of desolate wasteland. I'll never understand it.

[jccouger]

Hey look, NewsOK wrote a story about us losing Stage Center.

https://newsok.com/article/5609482/g...n=NIC-Facebook

[skanaly]

Renderings! Or I dont believe it!

[SagerMichael]

Renderings! Or I dont believe it!

Well we did get renderings of a basketball court...

[Pete]

Here is the reality of what is going on this site, likely for a very long time.

In the first drawing is a temporary construction drive (#2) and a concrete washout (#1).

[bigsmooth]

Perhaps this thread should be renamed Four Towers Sport Complex. SMH

[Martin]

[citywokchinesefood]

Honestly, how this entire site has been handled is despicable. This is so woefully inadequate it isn't even funny. If you want to put in a bunch of courts for various sports, please do. This entire concept and design is like putting a band aid on the stump of someones decapitated limb. How is any of this better than the stage center, how does any of this fill the space better than the stage center. Former and past members of the city council should be ashamed of themselves. It takes a genuine lack of integrity and commitment to something to let this bull**** be an acceptable outcome from this entire process.

[Johnb911]

When it got torn down I was not disappointed, other than the fact that something wasn't able to be worked out for a viable business/museum/whatever to go in there and save the site. But from everything I read, in it's current state at the time it was a drain on the city to have to keep it secure against transients, and there were constant flooding issues. There were attempts made to turn it into something else (like a children's museum) but nothing could be worked out and no one stepped up to get it done.

HOWEVER, I realize now that a lot of how I felt was based on information taken in from sources I now take with a bigger grain of salt. So I'm willing to be convinced otherwise. I TOTALLY agree that everything since the building was torn down has been an absolute bungle, and have come to believe that choosing OG&E was not 'the only option' here. Can anyone shed more light on the situation the building was in towards the end? Could it have realistically been turned into a viable property that was supporting itself, or mostly supporting itself, and not just kept on as an empty shell because of it's architectural significance?

[Pete]

^

Of course it could have been saved. We have saved buildings in far, far worse shape.

And when the powers that be are properly motivated, there is always tens of millions of public funds that can be rounded up and all types of grants and TIF's and revenue bonds and loans and selling off other city assets and everything else.

The difference here is that people like Pete Delaney (head of OG&E) wanted that property, and he's a very powerful person. And none of the usual cast of rich and powerful made any effort to save it, just like with the bus station and Hotel Black and the India Temple Building.

The simple truth is that what those people decide is what gets done in this town. It would be less worrisome if they were actually using their own money to drive their desired outcomes rather than tax dollars and money from publicly-traded corporations.


To illustrate how all this works in subtle but profound ways, some will remember that for a while OKCTalk had a webcam set up in the old Hotel Black building so we could broadcast the demolition of the old Stage Center in real time.

Before long, a building manager (through the ostensible but almost certain proxy owner, Nick Preftakes) to demand the camera be taken down.

Even though the tenant who was hosting for us had every right to have that webcam, they also weren't going to go to the mat with their landlord over something that was already a favor to OKCTalk. It was promptly shut down.

At the time and even more so now, it was obvious to me that the real owner of Hotel Black did not want those images causing problems for the real owner of the Stage Center. And that's the way things still work in OKC.

[Johnb911]

Thanks Pete, I appreciate your thoughts and observations

[PhiAlpha]

^

Of course it could have been saved. We have saved buildings in far, far worse shape.

And when the powers that be are properly motivated, there is always tens of millions of public funds that can be rounded up and all types of grants and TIF's and revenue bonds and loans and selling off other city assets and everything else.

The difference here is that people like Pete Delaney (head of OG&E) wanted that property, and he's a very powerful person. And none of the usual cast of rich and powerful made any effort to save it, just like with the bus station and Hotel Black and the India Temple Building.

The simple truth is that what those people decide is what gets done in this town. It would be less worrisome if they were actually using their own money to drive their desired outcomes rather than tax dollars and money from publicly-traded corporations.


To illustrate how all this works in subtle but profound ways, some will remember that for a while OKCTalk had a webcam set up in the old Hotel Black building so we could broadcast the demolition of the old Stage Center in real time.

Before long, a building manager (through the ostensible but almost certain proxy owner, Nick Preftakes) to demand the camera be taken down.

Even though the tenant who was hosting for us had every right to have that webcam, they also weren't going to go to the mat with their landlord over something that was already a favor to OKCTalk. It was promptly shut down.

At the time and even more so now, it was obvious to me that the real owner of Hotel Black did not want those images causing problems for the real owner of the Stage Center. And that's the way things still work in OKC.

It really sucks that the BOK building wasn’t just built on the stage center lot. Seems like that would’ve been an easy solution to all of this.

[bchris02]

It really sucks that the BOK building wasn’t just built on the stage center lot. Seems like that would’ve been an easy solution to all of this.

Especially since if my memory serves me correctly, OG&E/Clayco/Rainey Williams tabled their plans before the Preftakes block was even demolished.

[HangryHippo]

It really sucks that the BOK building wasn’t just built on the stage center lot. Seems like that would’ve been an easy solution to all of this.

Beat me to it, but I was just about to post the same thing. And we would have had a RePUBlic downtown!

[PaddyShack]

Is there a thread or good source on the history of these two sites, with pictures, before demo and new construction?