Streetcar

[Kerry]

This is exactly like what i've been picturing. There are four sets of tracks at Santa Fe. Two to cover.... two for thru traffic.

Now that might be feasable. I was concerned about freight traffic having to travel through an enclosed building.

How many tracks are at Santa Fe station. The only photo I can find shows 6.

[Platemaker]

Ok... you gotta ignore the crude crude crude drawing... All I have in front of me is Paint.

Obviously none of us know where the streetcar tracks are going... this is all just an idea.

[Kerry]

Plate - that is awesome! I love the line of sight idea for Santa Fe Station and the Ford Center along Broadway

[onthestrip]

Where does the money for this new giant hub come from, and when. With Project 180 going on and streets torn up, it appears that the streetcar might be one of the first maps3 items completed. So how do we fund this giant hub? Also, Im guessing the Cox center wont go away for at least 10 years, so where do get the room for this hub in the meantime?

[Kerry]

onthestrp - this idea is 10 to 12 years out. Nothing can happen until a new convention center is built and the state decides to fund a commuter rail system. My guess would be that funds would come from the state and federal governments and a metro-wide MAPS style vote. Money would also come from the sale/lease of the areas marked "Other Development"

[jbrown84]

That's a great plan, Plate. Were you envisioning EK Gaylord going underground or just not going through anymore?

[Kerry]

That's a great plan, Plate. Were you envisioning EK Gaylord going underground or just not going through anymore?

It will go underground. It will provide covered drop off, entry/exit for taxis, access to a rental car/scooter/segway center, as well as through access for north and south bound traffic.

[Platemaker]

I dunno... seems like you would want a airport style drop off/pick up area... I could see traffic being able to drive through. Maybe the trains could go underground for a block there? Or visa versa.

[Spartan]

I think that portions of the Cox could be used for a transit center but overall it's vital that we keep the Cox. I know people don't realize this, but it is a 1.1 million sf convention center, still one of the largest in the nation. The new convention center will only be 500,000 sf, half the overall size of the Cox, even if the Cox only has 100,000 sf of contiguous exhibition space. We still need to hold onto the Cox, which is still a very nice facility, just not enough convention space. That way the new center just builds off of what the Cox can already offer.

Building the new smaller, but more convention-oriented center and demolishing the Cox is like taking one step forward and two steps backwards.

[Kerry]

Plate - I envisoin a drop off area that is located underground where the Myraid parking garage is now. You don't want to drop people off right at the train platform. You want them to go through the station.

As you come south on EK Gaylord you would go underground just before Sheridan. As you approach California St (but underground) you would then make a right turn into a ground transportation services area. It would loop around and come back out on EK Gayloard. Once back on EK Gaylord you could keep going south under Reno and then return to the surface. The next light would then be the new boulevard.

[Kerry]

Spartan - The Cox is not 1.1 million sq feet. It has 250,000. Crossroads Mall is just over 1 million sq feet and it dwarfs Cox.

[Spartan]

The Cox, including the arena, actually is a 1.1 million sf facility..

http://www.hotelsconventioncenter.co...hp?CentreID=56

[Kerry]

Spartan - we discussed this to death pre-MAPS III vote. Cox has exactly 185,206 sq feet of rentable space. That includes all meeting rooms, arena, and exhibit space. Various web site seem to have different numbers so here is every room available at Cox, the demensions, and the sq footage. To get to 1,000,000 sq feet they would have to include non-leasable space and the parking garage under it. I don't even think the lot it sits on is 1,000,000 sq feet. That would be a square 1,000' X 1,000'.

Exhibit Hall Dimensions Sq. Ft.
A 62' X 64' 4,032
B 53' X 64' 3,456
C 52' X 64' 3,328
D 53' X 64' 3,456
E 62' X 64' 4,032
1 125' X 199' 25,074
2 159' X 199' 31,400
3 125' X 199' 25,074
Exhibit Hall SubTotal 99,852 sq feet

Room Dimensions Sq. Ft.
Meeting Room 1 46' X 27' 1,265
Meeting Room 2 46' X 27' 1,269
Meeting Room 3 46' X 26' 1,219
Meeting Rooms 4 46' X 40' 1,855
Meeting Rooms 5 46' X 29' 1,365
Meeting Rooms 6 26' x 25' 680
Meeting Rooms 7 24' X 30' 738
Meeting Rooms 8 25' X 53' 1,349
Meeting Rooms 9 49' X 32' 1,575
Meeting Rooms 10 49' X 33' 1,631
Meeting Rooms 11 49' X 33' 1,631
Meeting Rooms 12 49' x 32' 1,575
Meeting Rooms A 48' X 65' 3,278
Meeting Room B 51' X 65' 3,508
Meeting Room C 103' X 109' 11,216
Meeting Room D 51' X 65' 3,508
Meeting Room E 48' X 65' 3,278
Meeting Rooms 14 40' X 32' 1,283
Meeting Rooms 15 40' X 32' 1,283
Meeting Rooms 16 51' X 32' 1,639
Meeting Rooms 17 51' X 33' 1,697
Meeting Rooms 18 51' X 33' 1,680
Meeting Rooms 19 51' X 33' 1,680
Meeting Rooms 20 51' X 32' 1,593
Meeting Rooms 21 29' x 22' 672
Boardroom 41' x 23' 887
Arena 32,000

Room SubTotal: 85,354 sq feet

Grand Total: 185,206 sq feet

[Spartan]

It's not uncommon for the actual total square footage of convention facilities to be 4 or 5 times the rentable square feet that the facility offers.

I notice you left out the bathrooms..

[soonerguru]

Where does the money for this new giant hub come from, and when. With Project 180 going on and streets torn up, it appears that the streetcar might be one of the first maps3 items completed. So how do we fund this giant hub? Also, Im guessing the Cox center wont go away for at least 10 years, so where do get the room for this hub in the meantime?

I'm fairly certain MIII contains about $10 million to develop a transit hub. Not sure if that's adequate for what's proposed here.

[Kerry]

I notice you left out the bathrooms..

I don't care who you are. That is funny right there.

[onthestrip]

I'm fairly certain MIII contains about $10 million to develop a transit hub. Not sure if that's adequate for what's proposed here.

Thats why I ask, because 10 mil is not near enough for whats being talked about in this thread. Is it just a small facility that can be expanded in the future? If so, where? Acquiring land wont be cheap.

[Larry OKC]

I'm fairly certain MIII contains about $10 million to develop a transit hub. Not sure if that's adequate for what's proposed here.

Have heard this $10M figure in the threads before but don't know where it is coming from. The MAPS 3 stuff I read never gave a cost breakdown, just the lump sum. I transit hub was mentioned but was provisional (if/might/could include). How far we get depends a lot on federal funding etc., which is not a sure thing (not with the streetcars themselves, but the hub, and the other components of mass trans).

[Larry OKC]

The Cox, including the arena, actually is a 1.1 million sf facility..

Oklahoma Cox Convention Center in Oklahoma. Hotels in Oklahoma. Hotels Convention Center

Spartan is correct, it IS a million sf facility but that number is skewed by the arena part. According to the Chamber's C.C. study

Total Building Space
Cox: 1,000,000 sf
MAPS 3: 570,000 sf
MAPS 4: 850,000 sf

Prime Exhibit Space
Cox: 81,500 sf
MAPS 3: 200,000 sf
MAPS 4: 300,000 sf

Meeting Space
Cox: 28,600 sf
MAPS 3: 50,000 sf
MAPS 4: 75,000 sf

Ballroom/Multi-use Space
Cox: 25,000 sf
MAPS 3: 35,000 sf
MAPS 4: 50,000 sf

Total Sellable Space
Cox: 153,600 sf
MAPS 3: 285,000 sf
MAPS 4: 425,000 sf

Headquarter Hotel Rooms
Cox: 311 rooms
MAPS 3: 650 rooms

Hotel Meeting/Ballroom Space
Cox: 0
MAPS 3: 50,000 sf

Although some articles said that the new convention center would replace the Cox (implying that it would be torn down), the Mayor has stated more than once that no decision on the fate of the Cox had been made (or will be made any time in the near future...probably 10 years away). This also goes back to the NTM folks claim that it would be our 3rd Convention Center which many in these threads scoffed at (the Ford is C.C. #2 according to the MAPS ballot and the Mayor during the Ford tax vote). As Spartan pointed out getting rid of the Cox wouldn't seem prudent.

Could still be used as an auxillary/overflow or for the size of conventions we already get.

Eliminating the Cox would eliminate the side-by-side arena setup that has been a selling point for landing Big 12 events.

We are poised to make another $4M in improvements to the Cox if we land the hockey team. This is in addition to the $60M under the 1st MAPS.

While parts of the Cox are nice, that wasn't what they were saying as to why we needed a new convention center. From the same Chamber report:

Some challenges facing the Oklahoma City market as they relate to functioning as a convention destination include:
• Building the brand awareness of Oklahoma City as a convention destination.
• Challenges due to the size and quality of the existing Cox Business Services Convention Center.
• Limited air accessibility.
• Limited supply of convention-quality hotel properties.
...
The poor quality of the convention center exhibit space. Virtually all competitive and comparable markets offer space of a significantly higher overall quality.

Of the Challenges list, only the Size/Quality of a New Convention Center is directly addressed in MAPS 3

[Spartan]

Well the $4 million in Cox improvements would be ALL made to the arena which was largely untouched by the $60 million Cox renovations. Don't worry..compared to other cities we're getting amazing bang for our buck. An AHL hockey team would be a decent amenity, too.

Sorry to hijack the thread. I think we just need to step back from the assumption that the Cox Center site is up for grabs. If we absolutely need some of the site for a multi-modal transit hub, then we can take chunks out of it but not the entire facility.

I think a MUCH MUCH better idea personally is completely taking E.K. Gaylord off the city grid and fill in that portion between the Cox and Santa Fe station if we need more room. Have the hub front Sheridan. That will give you more interaction with the convention center, ample room to do a full transit hub, solve our E.K. Gaylord problem, turn Sheridan into a more pedestrian-friendly access point between Bricktown and Downtown, and have a hub that is truly in the middle of it all.

[kevinpate]

... I think a MUCH MUCH better idea personally is completely taking E.K. Gaylord off the city grid and fill in that portion between the Cox and Santa Fe station if we need more room.

Doesn't EKG blvd. carry a passle plus of traffic every week day? Where does it get routed under the above?

[Spartan]

Good question Kevin.

See the funny thing about EKG is that there is a perfectly good street capable of carrying lots of vehicle traffic as well as safely including pedestrians (unlike EKG) just one block to the west (Broadway). By getting rid of EKG we remove one of the last vestiges of urban renewal that never really made a lot of sense in the first place. It's basically a downtown-bypass, except it cuts straight through downtown. Go figure.

The chamber has been wanting to fix the NW 4th/Broadway/EKG/Dean McGee intersection for a while but city engineers won't let them touch it. We need to have a public discussion on the merits of keeping EKG open, which I don't think are that great. I can offer up a laundry list of reasons to close it, but the only reason to keep it open is for handling large amounts of traffic. Well, there are a ton of other streets in downtown that can handle large amounts of traffic, in fact, there are capable streets that are desperate for large amounts of traffic. Go figure.

Look at 6-lane one-way Hudson Avenue (granted that's going to be fixed with 180). Not to mention I think it would be a lot cheaper to just rip out EKG than to find solutions.

[Kerry]

You can't take EKG out. It is the only street through downtown that crosses the river. It is also the only street that goes through downtown OKC all the way. If you take it out everyone would have to to make a left and then a right to get through downtown. That would be a disaster for traffic - even with the new street alignments. OKC needs more streets opened - not closed. Besides Broadway is blocked by the Cox Center and the Ford Center.

The best alternative is to build the new convention center just south of the Ford Center and include an arena with it. The COX site will have a better and higher use as a transit hub than as a secondary convention site.

Yes they spent $60 million fixing it up but by the time Cox meets the implosion team it will have been nearly 20 years. The Cox was renovated in 1999, it is now 2009 (almost 2010) and a transt hub won't be needed for 10 more years. So it was hardly wasted money.

[the hip]

Uh oh!!! I'm a Google My Maps junkie!!! You're all gonna be sick of me!

How about one way figure eight style lines a la Portland. Maximum streetcar frontage... this would serve current hotels very well... access to multiple lines. Of course this is more than 6 miles worth... but whatever.

What about a Midtown crossing?

[Spartan]

You can't take EKG out. It is the only street through downtown that crosses the river. It is also the only street that goes through downtown OKC all the way. If you take it out everyone would have to to make a left and then a right to get through downtown. That would be a disaster for traffic - even with the new street alignments. OKC needs more streets opened - not closed. Besides Broadway is blocked by the Cox Center and the Ford Center.

The best alternative is to build the new convention center just south of the Ford Center and include an arena with it. The COX site will have a better and higher use as a transit hub than as a secondary convention site.

Yes they spent $60 million fixing it up but by the time Cox meets the implosion team it will have been nearly 20 years. The Cox was renovated in 1999, it is now 2009 (almost 2010) and a transt hub won't be needed for 10 more years. So it was hardly wasted money.

That's not true. Robinson and Walker both go through downtown alllll the way and both cross the river. I disagree that the Cox has a better and higher use as a transit hub than a secondary convention center..considering it's not going to be an inferior convention center for a while. It's still a good facility, recently renovated, just too damn small. I strongly disagree with putting ANY superblock sites adjacent to the ones we already have, same thing as putting the convention center and park together.. I would be for renovating the Cox again in the future and completely reconfiguring it. Fixing the bare sides, integrating a new transit hub on the east side, creating a pedestrian corridor through the Cox where Broadway ends, and making various other improvements to it.