Primrose School

[Mississippi Blues]

If a daycare near a busy intersection is unsafe for children then the argument should be 1. against the daycare being built at that intersection, or 2. that the intersections need to be better designed to encourage the safety of the children. Arguing against an urban design in the urban core or that sidewalks are more dangerous than parking lots is circular at best. The perceived lack of safety is magnified from urban design and walkability/sidewalks being an afterthought; you don’t ease that by forcing a development into a spot where safety is of genuine concern and design it in a way that shelters it largely from the surrounding area, at least if you want a connected core that actually is safe for those that live in it. Of course, this is a needed development coming from a sought after provider, so it’ll likely thrive no matter how it’s designed or what unsafe intersection it’s near. Focusing on how disconnected it should be for safety reasons misses the much more important discussion of why an area is unsafe to begin with as well as if a development is functionally appropriate for that particular location, though.

[David]

Here is a good example of how this lot should be developed. Somehow Primrose was ok with this and didn't require the building to have an entrance off of the street or think the kids were in imminent danger.

I'm sure the focus group that doesn't want to take more than 5 steps out of their car already live in the suburbs and would not utilize this location anyway. As someone with an 8 month old that lives walking distance from this location, I would like urban core locations to cater to more than just people in cars. That is the entire point of urban design. This layout is perfectly fine for Edmond but not for this location.

That's an interesting example, much more like the two story design I was expecting with the peaked roof theme.

[HOT ROD]

hopefully the 1 floor rendering was an accident. I too am disappointed there's no interaction with classen blvd, at LEAST they could have some architectural design facing that way (even their gables would work) rather than a blank wall and play-yards. Speaking of which, WHY oh WHY are the playground abutting 13th and Classen? Child safety anyone????

I am thankful parking is not on classen but if it were me I'd have the building fronting sidewalk at 13th and Classen, have the play yards next to each other away from the street on the other side of the building with the parking probably where it is along 13th but smaller footprint since this is Midtown urban area.

Perhaps some of my thoughts will be realized during the design review; Great infill and a very much needed service but not a good job at recognizing/utilizing the location or child safety.

[TheTravellers]

hopefully the 1 floor rendering was an accident. I too am disappointed there's no interaction with classen blvd, at LEAST they could have some architectural design facing that way (even their gables would work) rather than a blank wall and play-yards. Speaking of which, WHY oh WHY are the playground abutting 13th and Classen? Child safety anyone????

I am thankful parking is not on classen but if it were me I'd have the building fronting sidewalk at 13th and Classen, have the play yards next to each other away from the street on the other side of the building with the parking probably where it is along 13th but smaller footprint since this is Midtown urban area.

Perhaps some of my thoughts will be realized during the design review; Great infill and a very much needed service but not a good job at recognizing/utilizing the location or child safety.

Build high fences, lock any gates, and hire enough qualified personnel to make sure no kid climbs the fence when they're on recess, don't design a building based on "child safety".

[HOT ROD]

ok I see your opinion, but as a parent I totally disagree with you Travellers.

btw, I wouldn't be worried about my kid escaping or climbing the fence.

[Martin]

btw, I wouldn't be worried about my kid escaping or climbing the fence.

[HangryHippo]

The Oklahoman has a blurb about this today (right on cue).

[fortpatches]

Here is a good example of how this lot should be developed. Somehow Primrose was ok with this and didn't require the building to have an entrance off of the street or think the kids were in imminent danger.

I'm sure the focus group that doesn't want to take more than 5 steps out of their car already live in the suburbs and would not utilize this location anyway. As someone with an 8 month old that lives walking distance from this location, I would like urban core locations to cater to more than just people in cars. .It has nothing to do with how the building looks, it is about how people access and interact with the building. It is also about how how the building interacts and enhances the neighborhood. That is the entire point of urban design. This layout is perfectly fine for Edmond but not for this location.

In this case, the dropoff zone is also removed off the main street and separated from the traffic by both a bike lane and cars in the drop off zone.
Maybe they should have used the right-most lane of Classen as a drop-off lane removed from traffic like they do in your example? It's almost like their schools face their drop-off zone or something.....

[GoGators]

In this case, the dropoff zone is also removed off the main street and separated from the traffic by both a bike lane and cars in the drop off zone.
Maybe they should have used the right-most lane of Classen as a drop-off lane removed from traffic like they do in your example? It's almost like their schools face their drop-off zone or something.....

Yea this argument would make sense if there was a specific drop off zone created for the primrose school just so they could have the front face their “drop off zone.” But what you are seeing is just public on street parallel parking and bike lanes that run down both sides of the street well beyond the school. It was clearly not done specifically for school drop off and was actually put in after the school had been designed, built, and operating.

If you are suggesting that the building’s urban design influenced the city into going in and implementing the complete redesign and road diet of an entire area after the fact, then I would say that is a great argument for insisting on good urban design here. Good design often leads to more good design.

[fortpatches]

If the roads were designed differently, then I would agree that the school may have had a better orientation to consider.

However, as I stated, even with your example, the children are not on a sidewalk right next to traffic. They are separated from traffic by the parked cars - and have a wider sidewalk than is currently there (yes im sure the school could expand the sidewalk, but that doesn't mitigate the other concerns). Plus, that road has fewer lanes of traffic than either Classen or 13th street and has a slower speed limit than either Classen or 13th street.

5mph may not sound too significant, but about 40 percent of pedestrians would die when struck by a vehicle traveling 30 mph at impact and 80 percent at 40 mph. Since it is probably more exponential than linear, roughly 55% would die at 35mph. That is a 37% increase in fatalities by increasing the speed only 5mph - the difference in speed between the location linked and the location on 13th and Classen.

[soonermike81]

Holy cow, so many people unhappy with yet another building's appearance! I know some have already said it, but this is a great addition to the area. Will help encourage more young families to move into downtown/midtown. I don't understand how the appearance of the building is the most important talking point here. It should be about what goes on inside the 4 walls. The quality care and education of the kids is what the majority of Primrose's clients are concerned with.

[MagzOK]

Holy cow, so many people unhappy with yet another building's appearance! I know some have already said it, but this is a great addition to the area. Will help encourage more young families to move into downtown/midtown. I don't understand how the appearance of the building is the most important talking point here. It should be about what goes on inside the 4 walls. The quality care and education of the kids is what the majority of Primrose's clients are concerned with.

+1

[GoGators]

If the roads were designed differently, then I would agree that the school may have had a better orientation to consider.

However, as I stated, even with your example, the children are not on a sidewalk right next to traffic. They are separated from traffic by the parked cars - and have a wider sidewalk than is currently there (yes im sure the school could expand the sidewalk, but that doesn't mitigate the other concerns). Plus, that road has fewer lanes of traffic than either Classen or 13th street and has a slower speed limit than either Classen or 13th street.

5mph may not sound too significant, but about 40 percent of pedestrians would die when struck by a vehicle traveling 30 mph at impact and 80 percent at 40 mph. Since it is probably more exponential than linear, roughly 55% would die at 35mph. That is a 37% increase in fatalities by increasing the speed only 5mph - the difference in speed between the location linked and the location on 13th and Classen.

Everything you are talking about regarding street safety happened after the school was already built and opened and could easily be implemented on 13th at anytime after the school opens with a few cans of paint. Fixing the orientation of this building in the future will be impossible. Existing bad urban design should not be used as justification for creating even more bad urban design.

[fortpatches]

You also shouldn't spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in the hope that some day in the future things might change for the better. If the city wants better urban design, they should work with people proactively, not just potentially accommodate people post hoc.

Changing the speed limits, narrowing the roads, isn't something that just takes a few cans of paint.

Work with what you have and advocate for things to change. But don't put your clients in a risky situation just because you have some pie-in-the-sky dream. Do what is best for them now.

Good urban design should never be put above people's present-day safety.

[stlokc]

Obviously safety of the kids is the most important priority, full stop.

But there are thousands of schools that have been built in urban areas and many being built today. And they aren't all designed perfectly for an urban context, but many of them are, and so it is imminently possible to go the extra step and have both safety and good design, regardless of the lot. If something is risky on a street like 13th in OKC, then how do they build in downtowns anywhere? And no, I'm not an architect or an engineer. I'm not going to try to do their work for them.

Otherwise, we can own up to the fact that we don't have a terribly "urban" feeling core in lots of places, that it's not that high a priority, and go on down the road.

[GoGators]

You also shouldn't spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in the hope that some day in the future things might change for the better. If the city wants better urban design, they should work with people proactively, not just potentially accommodate people post hoc.

Changing the speed limits, narrowing the roads, isn't something that just takes a few cans of paint.

Work with what you have and advocate for things to change. But don't put your clients in a risky situation just because you have some pie-in-the-sky dream. Do what is best for them now.

Good urban design should never be put above people's present-day safety.

Again, the claims that a proper layout would somehow be more dangerous is incorrect. There is zero downside whether the street is ever changed or not. Alternatively, there is no benefit to leaving the layout as is and it would actually be detrimental to safety by discouraging pedestrian activity along the street.

[BridgeBurner]

Was trying to think what it reminded me of... just had to go a ways up Classen lol https://www.google.com/maps/uv?pb=!1...jIQpx96BAg2EAg

[Mississippi Blues]

Holy cow, so many people unhappy with yet another building's appearance! I know some have already said it, but this is a great addition to the area. Will help encourage more young families to move into downtown/midtown. I don't understand how the appearance of the building is the most important talking point here. It should be about what goes on inside the 4 walls. The quality care and education of the kids is what the majority of Primrose's clients are concerned with.

If the inside was the only thing that had an affect on the surrounding area then you would have a point. Anyone who has spent more than 30 seconds in an urban area knows the inside of a space is important but the way a building interacts with the surrounding environment is vital to an urban area. I can understand your thinking though since most Oklahomans in general aren’t going to interact with the outside of a building as long as they have to drive from 5+ miles away to get to the lot where they then park and go inside, so the most important thing to most here is going to be the travel between as well as what the space inside offers. If you were talking about some place in Mustang or Piedmont then sure, the critiquing would be banal. Since this is in the shadows of downtown Oklahoma City, your complaint about the complaining seems to just lack an understanding of urban design.

You mention that this is going to entice young families to consider moving to this area. I live on the outskirts of the core and would have about a 10-20 minute drive to this location depending on traffic and stoplights. I have a wife and an 18-month-old son with plans to expand our family in the next couple of years. Nothing about this development makes me think I’m better off selling my $95k house to buy a home that is going to be double that price with half the space at minimum to save about 5-10 minutes of driving. If this development is going to entice me and most young families to consider moving nearby, this development and the entire immediate area is going to have to drastically change in a way that allows me to walk my son to daycare and then easily get on a bus or streetcar to get to work if it’s not within walking distance. As is, that’s not an option unless I have a lot of spare time and developments designed to make a place as accessible by those from 30-40 minutes away as it is for those that live in the immediate area does little-to-nothing to incentivize us to live closer.

I’m honestly fine with the development itself as I’ve already learned that I shouldn’t expect Oklahoma City to become a place where car-less living is a serious option for a decent size of the population, even for those that live in the urban parts of the city. Most of what I’m saying doesn’t realistically apply since I’m talking about some sort of ideal end-goal that is an afterthought to most that live here. Obviously, how this daycare is designed or the way it interacts with the street isn’t going to change that. But if you don’t understand what is alluring about urban design and the way it interacts with the community, then you’ll never be able to understand why people on OKCTalk critique the lack of urban care in developments that are near the most urban parts of the city.

[Mballard85]

Holy cow, so many people unhappy with yet another building's appearance! I know some have already said it, but this is a great addition to the area. Will help encourage more young families to move into downtown/midtown. I don't understand how the appearance of the building is the most important talking point here. It should be about what goes on inside the 4 walls. The quality care and education of the kids is what the majority of Primrose's clients are concerned with.

Same stuff, different day.

[stlokc]

I think it's important to remember that even though this site has grown exponentially to include a huge cross-section of OKC residents, expats and others, in many fields and with many different opinions (all to the good), at it's core, a lot of us visit this site primarily because we are interested in the development of the urban fabric of the city.

That's not to say many of us aren't parents or we don't have interests beyond that, but it shouldn't be surprising in this forum that people would critique a building and its contribution to the urban development of OKC. This is the "Development and Buildings" thread.

[soonermike81]

If the inside was the only thing that had an affect on the surrounding area then you would have a point. Anyone who has spent more than 30 seconds in an urban area knows the inside of a space is important but the way a building interacts with the surrounding environment is vital to an urban area. I can understand your thinking though since most Oklahomans in general aren’t going to interact with the outside of a building as long as they have to drive from 5+ miles away to get to the lot where they then park and go inside, so the most important thing to most here is going to be the travel between as well as what the space inside offers. If you were talking about some place in Mustang or Piedmont then sure, the critiquing would be banal. Since this is in the shadows of downtown Oklahoma City, your complaint about the complaining seems to just lack an understanding of urban design.

You mention that this is going to entice young families to consider moving to this area. I live on the outskirts of the core and would have about a 10-20 minute drive to this location depending on traffic and stoplights. I have a wife and an 18-month-old son with plans to expand our family in the next couple of years. Nothing about this development makes me think I’m better off selling my $95k house to buy a home that is going to be double that price with half the space at minimum to save about 5-10 minutes of driving. If this development is going to entice me and most young families to consider moving nearby, this development and the entire immediate area is going to have to drastically change in a way that allows me to walk my son to daycare and then easily get on a bus or streetcar to get to work if it’s not within walking distance. As is, that’s not an option unless I have a lot of spare time and developments designed to make a place as accessible by those from 30-40 minutes away as it is for those that live in the immediate area does little-to-nothing to incentivize us to live closer.

I’m honestly fine with the development itself as I’ve already learned that I shouldn’t expect Oklahoma City to become a place where car-less living is a serious option for a decent size of the population, even for those that live in the urban parts of the city. Most of what I’m saying doesn’t realistically apply since I’m talking about some sort of ideal end-goal that is an afterthought to most that live here. Obviously, how this daycare is designed or the way it interacts with the street isn’t going to change that. But if you don’t understand what is alluring about urban design and the way it interacts with the community, then you’ll never be able to understand why people on OKCTalk critique the lack of urban care in developments that are near the most urban parts of the city.

Very good and well thought-out response. I personally love visiting OKCTalk because I love reading about all the new developments and growth of my city. But it gets old hearing about how this isn't pretty enough, that is tall enough, this is too suburban/Edmond-like, etc. Because this design doesn't entice you to move closer to downtown, does not mean it doesn't entice other young families. It obviously has to make financial sense for each family. The amenities that we have downtown and surrounding areas today is night and day versus 10 years ago. I can't imagine that this very high-demand amenity won't entice many young families to consider the move.

You're absolutely right that I "lack an understanding of urban design." That's not what's important to me. I'm concerned with what goes on inside the building. And I'm not talking about the color of paint on the walls. If it were me, I would choose this place based on their reputation, the quality of their employees, their curriculum, etc. Whether it looks like the proposed design or one of the pics that sooner.arch posted, those reasons I laid out above will be, by far, the most important factors for me in deciding to send my kids here. Just a matter of priorities, in my opinion.

[Urbanized]

When good urban design is discussed I believe that many who disregard its importance don't fully appreciate that the main difference between suburban and urban designs is that one treats a building as a standalone feature while the other treats it as part of a larger organism. A suburban design that interrupts the urban fabric - or a series of suburban designs strung together - can rob the rest of the neighborhood of walk appeal. An interruption in urban design can doom anything on the other side of it to being less successful.

Conversely, good urban design can cause the next building on the street - or the next street - to have a better chance of succeeding.

[dankrutka]

^^^
+1000

[HangryHippo]

When good urban design is discussed I believe that many who disregard its importance don't fully appreciate that the main difference between suburban and urban designs is that one treats a building as a standalone feature while the other treats it as part of a larger organism. A suburban design that interrupts the urban fabric - or a series of suburban designs strung together - can rob the rest of the neighborhood of walk appeal. An interruption in urban design can doom anything on the other side of it to being less successful.

Conversely, good urban design can cause the next building on the street - or the next street - to have a better chance of succeeding.

Per usual, very, very well said.

[Midtowner]

When good urban design is discussed I believe that many who disregard its importance don't fully appreciate that the main difference between suburban and urban designs is that one treats a building as a standalone feature while the other treats it as part of a larger organism. A suburban design that interrupts the urban fabric - or a series of suburban designs strung together - can rob the rest of the neighborhood of walk appeal. An interruption in urban design can doom anything on the other side of it to being less successful.

Conversely, good urban design can cause the next building on the street - or the next street - to have a better chance of succeeding.

Wouldn't it be fair to say that north of NW 13th is suburban anyway?