New Skyscrapers Downtown

[JOHNINSOKC]

How long do you all think it will be before we get another major office building downtown that exceeds the height we have there now? Personally, I'm ready for a change to our skyline. It seems that with all of the energy we have in the area now, we need to expand our skyline as well. I'm thinking that it will happen within the next 5 years if we can lure a corporate giant. Any opinions on this?

[mranderson]

Unless Devon builds a new building, here is a probable timeline.

First we need to improve air service by either establishing Oklahoma City as a hub or recruiting more airlines to provide more and better non stop service to key cities (ie: Los Angeles). Second we need to recruit more business to this city. I do not mean more call centers (although had it not been for the last one, I would still be home looking for a job). I mean REAL jobs that pay a living wage. Most jobs created pay less than $10 per hour. THAT is not a living wage. It is barely over poverty level. Third. We need to change this redneck pessimistic attitude and bring better attractions including major league sports.

After that, you will probably see another tall building. Time frame? The way we are progressing, probably somewhere in the year 4000. If then.

[Midtowner]

Why do they need a new building downtown when a very good amount of it is still vacant?

I agree though, we need to give executive types a reason to move here. Our state has been getting factories, call centers, distribution centers, etc. To my knowledge though, we've never really had a major corporation relocate to OKC. All of those buildings (and I could be wrong) were built or are occupied by Oklahoma-grown businesses.

[Midtowner]

Due to the lack of an edit feature, I have to post a second consecutive message:

Also, the trend lately for corporations has been to move away from the tower format. Especially in OKC where land is fairly inexpensive. Many have moved to a "campus" format where there are several buildings between 4-6 stories tall.

[mranderson]

Although they have all but been located here for several years, one of the threads had a message that Hetz will officially declare Oklahoma City their corprate headquarters in the not to distant future. When the CEO retires.

It is really based here, however, business guides still have them as headquartered in New York state somewhere. That may mean more space needed for Hertz.

Yes. Devon may have a lot of space left, however, they may want to consolodate and give their people nicer office space.

We need to lease a lot of space before a new building is built. PLAN for it, but do not start moving dirt yet.

[JOHNINSOKC]

I lived in Nashville for 3 years back in the early 1990's and South Central Bell built a brand new 40-story skyscraper for their regional office downtown and vacated the old one which wasn't large at all. The corporate headquarters was in either Birmingham or Atlanta, I can't remember, but my point is that the company invested in downtown Nashville and now, that building is the tallest and most recognizable in the city. It is known by locals as the "Batman Building" because the top looks like Batman with pointing steeples at each end. If you've driven through there, you can't help but notice it. I just think that some businesses in this city need to step to the plate and invest in the city. If Nashville can do it, why not OKC? I really think that Kerr-McGee needs a new building or at least a renovation of the existing one.

[mranderson]

I am VERY fimiliar with that building. I think it is a couple of blocks from the Country Music Hall of Fame, which relocated not long ago to downtown from Music Row. Nice looking building. I wish Oklahoma City would get that creative!

I believe Bell South was based in Atlanta.

[okcpulse]

Considering that the last 30+ story office tower built in Oklahoma City was completed in 1982 (Oklahoma Tower) and designed in 1979 or 1980, most likely, a new office tower's design will no doubt be as creative as Nashville, or even Charlotte, for that matter. Leadership Square is no doubt a nice-looking glass building, finished in 1984, however, it is not an office tower. I met the architect personally, Mr. Roloff. he told me Leadership Square was to be a sixty-story tower, and even showed me his conceptual drawings. However, the developers were looking for something more "intimate" design with two towers.

The real problem is the lack of effort with city leaders to colaborate with local developers and get a new office tower downtown. They have approved too many "office parks". Each new office park is another chance gone to get a new tower downtown.

Sure, attracting new corporations would be a big help, but I believe its time for Downtown OKC, Inc. to stop buying into this "well we have high vacancy rates" garbage that Oklahoma City real estate "experts" keeps feeding them. Hey, you can't fill a crappy office building with tennants.

[Midtowner]

Pulse, there are many issues when locating downtown vs. officeparks:

Real Estate obviously is more expensive, parking garages cost more money than parking lots. Also, when there is overflow, you have to pay exorbitant prices for parking downtown as compared with officeparks where you can often just buy a little extra land to pave over. A 30 story tower is going to be a LOT more expensive per square foot to build than a comparable square foot 3-6 story building. Insurance costs for towers are absolutely astronomical compared to regular sized buildings.

I could go on and on. There are good dollars and cents reasons why downtown areas aren't getting new office towers. It makes sense to build these in cities where no matter where you go, real-estate is expensive. However, that is just no the case in the OKC metro.

Things are really changing downtown though. As you start to see more people living down there, more entertainment venues, less vagrants, etc., I think you may start to see some new construction. You just have to be patient and realize that while Chicago is building several new towers 30+ stories right now, OKC is not Chicago

[Luke]

Midtowner, those same reasons NOT to build a tower downtown are the same anywhere else in the nation, yet it doesn't stop developers from building in downtowns across the globe. We need to get out of our "cheaper is better" Wal-Mart mindset and get quality. A world class architectural wonder of an office building in OKC. Why not?

[metro]

I agree and disagree Luke, Midtowner has made some sad but true points. Land is so cheap here compared to elsewhere, If you go to L.A., San Fran, New York, Miami, land is so expensive in all parts of the city, it makes better since to build a high rise downtown. Here you can go to the west or N.W. edge of the city and get land relatively inexpensive compared to one of the above cities.

[Midtowner]

Midtowner, those same reasons NOT to build a tower downtown are the same anywhere else in the nation, yet it doesn't stop developers from building in downtowns across the globe. We need to get out of our "cheaper is better" Wal-Mart mindset and get quality. A world class architectural wonder of an office building in OKC. Why not?

Luke, the cost differential is not even in the same ballpark when you're comparing land prices in LA vs. OKC. Not even in the same universe. Ego-wise, sure, a company would love to be able to claim they have the tallest building on the skyline. However, if they could build a campus like Chesapeake Energy and save about 10 million in the process, don't you think they'd go for that?

-- don't answer, it's a rhetorical question. Of course they'd go the cheap route. Have you seen the Chesapeake campus? Very nice.

[JOHNINSOKC]

Wow, I wish they would've built Leadership Square as a 60-story tower instead. Imagine what that would've looked like as you're driving around OKC. I believe that would've done a lot for our city's image. You can't see the current building from the suburbs. As other metros around the country grow, our skyline will start to look less appealing to those who are traveling through here or staying for a few days, not to mention that locals are tired of the same buildings. I think the council should get tougher on urban sprawl. It doesn't make sense doing all of this building in Bricktown and surrounding area if we are just going stay with the status quo as far as downtown towers are concerned. Our city will be seen as much more progressive if passersby see a huge crain in the midst of a huge new skyscraper under construction. Agree?

[Patrick]

Well, my first answer to the problem would be to limit zoning for office parks, but would we really want to stop developments like Chesapeake? If we were so restrictive on zoning that we wouldn't allow Chesapeake to build its campus here, they'd probably just go elsewhere....Dallas maybe? So, really I don't see where we can do anything about the current problem we're faced with.

Companies don't want to build general office buildings downtown because the vacancy rate downtown is already high. If there were a huge demand for office space downtown, things would be different.

To get companies and businesses to locate downtown instead of in outlying areas, our city is simply going to have to offer incentives. Unfortunately, those incentives usually cost much more than incentives for campus type developments. Imagine the types of incentives that would've had to be given to Dell to get them to move into First National! It simply wouldn't have been worth it.

Someone made a comment about trying to lure executives and corporate headquarters to our city. A coporate headquarters might be our only shot for getting a new office tower downtown. But even at that, a corporation would probably consider outlying areas instead. Take Express Personel Services for example. They chose to build their Internation Headquarters far out on NW Expressway, not downtown. Why? Land was cheap!

JOHNINSOKC, unfortunately, at this point, we're lucky just to be able to keep KerrMcGee here, much less get them to build a new office tower here. They fill less than 50% of their current office tower, and they fill nearly 100% of their 2 office towers in Houston....there have been talks of them planning a 3rd office tower in Houston. There have also been talks of Kerr McGee moving its headquarters to Houston after Luke Corbett leaves. I'm not sure how accurate that information is though. I really can't see KerrMcGee leaving because of the history they have here, but it's a possiblity. Devon is far larger than KerrMcGee, and they are currently filling all of their space at Bank One Tower and Devon Tower (the old Mid America Tower), so they are looking for more space. I'm not quite sure where they're going to expand to though. Although I'd like to see Devon build a new office tower, personally, I'd like to see them renovate and fill up First National.

[BG918]

The only way for OKC to see more downtown office construction would be for the city to offer incentives. Let's say a big company moves into the city. OKC would then offer them a tax break if they build a tower downtown or lease current office space in the CBD. So they could go ahead and build a sprawling office park in Edmond and save some money in short term, but long term they would lose out on the tax break. Just an idea, but I believe the city should be more proactive about this...

One thing buildings have going for them even now is that they are very symbolic. If you are a company would you rather have an office park as your HQ or a massive tower that is the symbol of an entire city? I believe the latter is enough to justify building a new tower. I really hope a local company like Devon builds a new tower, something like that can really energize the CBD.

[mranderson]

Incentives. I really hate that. You have multi billion dollar corporations that can easily afford to pay their own way, and you have to dig deep and give, give, give. To me, that is bribary. Find another way.

Someone said the reason Dell would not move to the First National Tower, if offered, was incentives. The only one that I would agree with is the fact that we would need a couple of thousand or more parking spaces provided free of charge to work downtown. Dell would take an entire parking garage. Many of us have to ride a shuttle two miles as it is now. That is why the new center will be on so much land.

Parking is still low compared to the rest of the cities across the nation with our ranking (250,000 people or more), however, could you afford to park at $6.00 to $8.00 a day when you made $10.00 per hour or less?

[Midtowner]

Unfortunately, Anderson, "incentives" (I agree, a/k/a bribery) are so common now. They were common back in the 80's and 70's as well. Back in the days of the OIA, Gaylord and his cronies built a 10-story building (don't recall which) with taxpayer money. After renting it for 5 years, his buddy's corporation bought the place for five dollars.

My father was going to put his butt and the butts of many prominant OKC crooks in jail for that (was 1st assistant attorney general at the time). Gaylord did his usual thing when in trouble -- he ran front page ads against the reelection of the current AG saying he was bad for business -- (well, he was, he was bad for Gaylord's business). Turpen was elected and amazingly, the case just disappeared.

http://www.oscn.net/applications/osc...p?citeID=53282

Above is an opinion of the AG's office at that time regarding some of the shady deelings of the OIA -- while they are not mentioned specifically, this was how they operated and the questioned was aimed at them.

[metro]

JOHN and Patrick, I understand your concerns as they were once mine. I recently posted some info from Mayor Cornett's recent speech. Basically it said restrictions and zoning is not the answer. Let the market forces take us where they will however we need to make the inner city more attractive. Incentives and beautification are two common practices. For more info you can visit the city website, watch the speech on the cox channel, or find the thread.

[JOHNINSOKC]

I agree with everyone's assessment of the office market. I wish the market would expand enough to allow for new major development where it's supposed to be. Had all of the 20+ story buildings on N.W. Expressway not been built and were instead built downtown, more than likely, our vacancy rates would be much lower downtown and we would have a much larger skyline. Of course, this city's mindset during the oil boom days was to build often and anywhere. Hopefully, with decreasing vacancies in the suburbs, attention to building downtown will increase more with time.

[mranderson]

Keep in mind. Oklahoma City is like most major cities. Not all of the high rises are downtown.

Dallas has many spread over US75. Los Angeles metro has them scattered along Wilshire in Westwood and along the San Diego, Hollywood and Ventura freeways, going as far as Burbank.

So, wanting it all downtown is not realistic based on other major cities. We just have to adjust.

[Midtowner]

John, the city/COTPA is doing something that may promote some growth in terms of construction and lower vacancy downtown. They are building parking garages everywhere! Have you not noticed? I can think of 3 very large ones right off the top of my head. Now, I shudder to think that COTPA will be running these garages -- this means that they'll be losing lots of money. Somehow, the 20+ year old Santa Fe Parking Garage is still in the red and has never turned a profit. How is that even possible? A parking garage should be a cash cow, especially considering where it's located.

No matter..

There are very few types of small businesses that can locate downtown. Usually, these businesses don't need to be incredibly accessable for their clients to visit. Also, they can't be too concerned with overhead. A friend of mine was telling me about a firm he has as a client (a law firm) who offices in Liberty Square. They pay 10,000/month in rent and 3,000/month in parking.

The law office I work in is a lot smaller (5 offices). We are on 13th street right outside of downtown. We pay $1,300/month and get free parking. We're also visible from the street and a LOT more accessable to our clients.

I think the city is doing what it can to promote downtown growth, however, in the end, the decision will be made based on dollars & cents.

[Patrick]

I think BG hit the nail on the head. Unfortunately, incentives are part of the business game. Without incentives, companies simply go to other cities that will offer them incentives. Had we not offered Bass Pro incentives, they simply would've gone to Midwest City, a nearby city that was considering giving Bass Pro an incentive. We would've been in the same situation as Tulsa with the Broken Arrow Bass Pro.

It's a lot cheaper to build a sprawling office park. Truth is, structured parking is expensive....so are high rise towers. The insurance alone on a high rise tower is enormous. If we want more office towers downtown, we're going to have to offer companies incentives to offset the cost difference. Otherswise, companies are going to choose the cheaper route.

It's as easy as that! Sure, it's "bribery" or whatever you want to call it, but that's ust the way business works.

[HOT ROD]

I just wanted to chime in here, since we are talking about downtowns and the comment was made that major cities have suburban business districts. there are some noteable exceptions, which I will discuss below - as well as some ideas of what I think OKC could do to improve on its situation. Please be advised that this is a rather lengthy reply - I apologize - but I have so many ideas that must be written down in order for me to go to sleep soundly tonite [its already 3:00 am PST and Im still up writing about downtown OKC].

. . . .

I know west coast cities are a little different from the rest of the country, but here in Seattle almost all of our highrises are downtown and surrounding neighbourhoods. We have zoning laws which prohibit highrises over 10 storeys to be located outside of downtown Seattle. This explains why Seattle looks so big and impressive of a city, for those of you who have ever been to Seattle or seen pics of the city.

Our downtown stretches about 1.5 miles long (but only 8 blocks wide), sort of like downtown Chicago just not as much. We have 13 towers over 500 feet (Bank of America tower is the tallest at almost 1000 ft/76 storeys). So 13 towers over 500 is not much when compared to Chicago and New York, but we have a plethra (sp?) of smaller towers and buildings that really fill downtown Seattle in.

Outside of downtown, we have only one other highrise district - called First Hill - because it is the first hill up from downtown Seattle. But here, towers are restricted to 300 feet and there is only one that is that tall. Almost all the others in First Hill are 10 storey residential or less.

The remainder of Seattle is low rise and residential stand-alone at best with a few exceptions. There is a 30 storey tower in the U-District (5 miles North of downtown Seattle) which is the headquarters for insurance giant SAFECO (our baseball stadium is named after them - SAFECO FIELD) and a 15 storey hotel next to it. SAFECO Tower is an OLD office building and was sort-of going to spur an "suburban office market" of sorts like OKC's NW Expressway business district but it was decided later to keep the office space in downtown Seattle. So, SAFECO is a lonely tower (besides the hotel across the street) when looking at all of Seattle. Most of the focus (and snapshots) are on downtown.

Vancouver is the same way, although their suburbs have their own downtown highrise districts as well. There is way too much synergy in downtown Vancouver, that businesses feel "left out" if they are not downtown. I think almost every suburb in Vancouver over 50,000 people has at least residential high-rises over 30 storeys in their downtowns.T

herefore, the suburbs do not have much major office markets, aside from local suburban business especially multinational/multiethnic (as Vancouver has people from all over the world and not everyone speaks English or French - Canada's home languages. In fact, greater than 35% of the city of Vancouver speaks Chinese-Cantonese (the same % is from Hong Kong as well, not to mention large numbers from taiwan, japan, china, india, and so on)! Van is VERY DIVERSE PLACE). It is Asia in North America!


ASIDE:
Clearly the office market is 99% located in downtown Vancouver CBD. A small (but rapidly growing) percentage of towers are popping up adjacent to downtown Van City, but there are HEAVY hight restrictions outside of the downtown peninsula (downtown Vancouver is on a peninsula, separated away from the rest of the city - kind-of like Manhattan, which explains why Van is often compared to NY. Van also has a GATE bridge, like Golden Gate - which (among many other reasons) explains why Van is frequently compared as Canada's San Fran.

Of course, downtown Vancouver itself has the single most densely populated residential in highrises in North America. But its suburbs are pretty much left for residential and retail, so suburbs still commute into downtown Vancouver daily - in the comfort of Vancouver's Skytrain automated elevated rapid transit (which is subway in downtown), in addition to commuter rail, ferry, and one of the largest bus networks in North America. No wonder Vancouver is always ranked at the top in worldwide rankings - great urban planning!
OK, back from the ASIDE ....

In Seattle, we have only one suburb named Bellevue which has highrises. It is the second largest office district and is comparable to OKC's NW business district in size but is a mix of office and residential. Actually, Bellevue may have almost as many towers as downtown OKC soon (just not as tall as OKC, of course). Seattle's southern sister, Tacoma only has highrises in its downtown and it is more like downtown Wichita plus a 30 storey tower which dominates its skyline.

ASIDE:
Tacoma is not considered part of metro Seattle (even tho it is only 33 miles south) because it pretty much has its own identity [and metro area], that's why if you ever see the Census for the area here we have the following designations
Greater Seattle, Greater Tacoma, Seattle-Bremerton PMSA, Tacoma PMSA, Olympia PMSA, then Seattle-Tacoma-Everett-Bremerton CMSA.

Greater Seattle includes basically the north puget sound area, Greater Tacoma includes the southern puget sound (including Olympia PSA); the PMSA areas is basically the city and surrounding suburbs [where people would commute into work to the central city] as Seattle, Tacoma, Bellevue, and Olympia are the commuting hubs for the region - they have metro areas although Bellevue is considered Seattle Metro (aka Seattle Eastside). the CMSA includes the whole area; Seattle-Tacoma-Everett-Bellevue-Bremerton and has a population of 3.7 million people.
OK enough ASIDE ..

Portland OR is just like Seattle in that ALL highrises are downtown, residential and office. In addition, Portland does not use superblocks (unlike Vancouver and Seattle [and OKC], which does) so in downtown portland, each building resides on its own square block (kind-of like downtown Tulsa). Portland has NO highrises outside of its downtown and NONE (ZERO) in its "sleepy" suburbs.

San Fran is like Vancouver, tall and supertall skyscrapers downtown with numerous suburbs having their own downtowns with highrises. Seattle is sort-of weird because its suburbs (with the exception of Bellevue and sister city of Tacoma) has downtown height restrictions. In the past, even downtown Seattle used to have height restrictions. If developers wanted to build higher than 500 feet, then they were required to buy undeveloped land in another part of the city to be turned into public park lands. Since we have 13 towers over 500 ft, we quite a few of these "parks" in residential areas that otherwise would have probably been turned into suburban office parks.

Unfortunately, the forum cut me off, so please select the next message where I wrap-up this monologue and get back to downtown OKC skyscrapers.

[HOT ROD]

I know I spurred away from the subject of downtown OKC skyscrapers a bit, but I wanted to give you guys some ideas about how we do things out here. Sorry about it being so long, but I just want to contribute to OKC's renaissance. I think the some of These may be ideas which OKC could adopt.

We know businesses want to locate in Oklahoma City. None of them are making a b-line for any of OKC's suburbs [as all of the downtowns around OKC are historical at best, with little to no office activity], so OKC could leverige (sp?) this fact and:

1) encourage businesses to locate downtown by offering additional tax incentives [in addition to the Federal Empowerment Zone privilege] which would offset parking/higher downtown rents

2) encourage a developer to come in and redevelop much of the class C office space. Actually, the city could encourage small businesses to locate in some of the older towers as small businesses do not require large floor-plans of class A space. Memphis is a perfect example of this philosophy in that there are many small (cheap) law firms, accounting gigs, this and that, in older class C office buildings - which saved many historical buildings from the wrecking ball there.

OKC could use this carrot, why locate in the expensive suburban class A market when what you need is access, the synergy of downtown, and an inexpensive place to conduct business. The other carrot would be a tax incentive which would more or less subsidize parking.

3) Once OKC absorbs its class C space downtown, the city should get some developers to build a few supertall class A towers. Believe me everyone, the market is there for class A downtown. Almost all of the class A space is taken already, so businesses almost are "forced" to the suburban NW business district.

Well, why not build more class A downtown and use that as another offer for a major corporation. Of course, OKC would not own the tower(s), BUT the city could help market the space by saying - hey company XX, why dont you consider OKC for the following reasons
- quality of life
- cost of living
- recent rankings in national indexes, indicating favourable market climate in OKC
- continued downtown renaissance
*- ready class A office space in rejuvinated Central Business district

Im sure many companies would come running because the class A space in downtown OKC would be considerably less than it would be in other major cities. What would seal the deal on that issue would be a concerted effort that would also land nonstop flights.

Let me tell you, it is much cheaper to hq in class A in downtown OKC and fly a few times a month to NY, Chicago, LA, San Fran (if nonstop existed to LA and San Fran) than it is to hq in class A in any of those cities. OKC could use this as a marketing tool for luring corporations to downtown. We may not always win, but hey - I bet OKC could pick up some regional hq, some corporate administrative centres, some backoffices [ask Atlanta, Charlotte, and Tampa], and some IT service centres.

But the three keys to this are: the city committed to this plan (from the airport to the downtown office commitments/remainder of the city zone restricted), the airport getting those flights (even one nonstop a day, where execs could go and conduct business and be back home for dinner), and the developer(s) commitment to the plan for high class, class A office towers.

OKC should place a moratorium on suburban office parks in lieu of building synergy downtown. Where else would businesses go? Edmond? please, no office space available there. Norman? please, too far from the action. Mid-Del? your joking, right! Southside highrises? Arent they already full? So, if OKC were to restrict suburban type developments in favour of downtown, we could really see the return of small "white collar" business in downtown OKC - which would fill-up class C towers like First National and City Place. For other less prominent (and hence, shorter) towers in the CBD - they could be converted to residential or hotels.

Its a little bit of a twist on Seattle's idea for downtown development, but I think with sound commitment and continued favourable market conditions OKC could totally reinvent its CBD and even expand it southward once I-40 moves south.

Now wouldnt that be great.

[Luke]

HOT ROD, thanks for the fascinating read. I love the idea, too.

Your point on class A space lacking downtown is right on. I'll bet a new class A tower downtown would fill up quickly.