More on SandRidge Energy
Here’s some more information on how SandRidge is looking at its new downtown campus:
- The company is not looking to get a pass on just razing every old building around the former Kerr McGee Tower. Company officials and architects are meeting with city planners and local leaders about how best to address the overall campus. Company officials know they face a likely difficult hearing with the Downtown Design Review Committee if they propose tearing down any of the older buildings.
ABOVE PHOTO: “CONSTRUCTION of new additions to Oklahoma City’s skyline is running right on schedule. Four of the major downtown projects, costing more than $45 million, are shown in this aerial photograph. Upper left is the $1 million-plus high-rise parking garage being built by the Central Oklahoma Transportation and Parking Authority. Well on the way toward completion is the 35-story Liberty Tower (upper right) costing $18.5 million. Rising out of the ground in the center of the photograph is the 30-story, $20 million office tower of Kerr- McGee Corp., and Fidelity Bank’s $6 million, 14-story office building (lower right) has most of its steel framework in place.” Staff photo by Al McLaughlin probably taken about 12/5/1970.
- At least two accomplished local developers would like to move forward with a conversion of the former Braniff building and adjoining tower into housing. SandRidge hasn’t discounted such possibilities either, but it’s clear they are not thrilled with the older buildings hiding the central tower either.
- The NYC architectural firm Rogers Marvel Architects are big followers of urban planner William Whyte and say they’re well aware of past mistakes made downtown where towers were built with large open plazas around them (and thus are unused and have little or no connection with pedestrians).
- City planners and officials are not very happy about the prospect of tearing down the older buildings.
More to come later.
-Steve
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Comments
Maybe its just me, but I think the kerr mcgee tower is about as boring looking as a tower can be anyway. Why would we want a better view of it?
Maybe Im thinking of the wrong building,…..its the big ugly concrete block isnt it?
That block is one of the few left in downtown with historic urban density. Razing those buildings and creating a plaza directly across from the BOK building, which already has a large setback/plaza, would create a very open, suburban feel, the oppossite of what we should be trying to achieve downtown.
Like Steve mentions, plazas like that are historically failures, at least from a pedestrian standpoint. And isn’t downtown supposed to be about people?
While I prefer preservation in most cases, I’m not a hardcore preservationist who feels those buildings should under no circumstances be demolished. However, I think the only way I personally would support it would be if they were replaced by dramatic new buildings on the same footprints, zero setback. But they would have to be spectacular to make up for losing those buildings and their histories, especially the Braniff.
Sand Ridge seems to be most concerned with promoting the image of the company (understandable for a new player in town who is already impressive in size and stature) by means of making the tower iconic, but I think the best way they could do this would be to take the lead in remaking that section of downtown as a model of urban redevelopment rather than an easy, suburban-styled ego boost. If they encouraged a dramatic re-thinking and reuse of those buildings instead of focusing on making a clear visual path to (I’m sorry) a very average tower in both scale and architecture, they could legitimize their place at the downtown leadership table in a way that few others have.
I am glad to see that they appear to be serious enough about doing the right thing to contract Rogers Marvel. I just hope they get the right advice, and that they listen with an open mind.
Ultimately, it’s going to be up to them to do the right thing. I think a number within the city will lobby to do the right thing, but it will be relatively easy for those voices to be overwhelmed if SandRidge decides to throw its considerable weight around. Plus I understand that Urban Design is mostly defanged these days when it comes to working from an urban bias.
I believe that tearing those buildings down to build an unneeded plaza would create more of a PR negative for SandRidge than an unobstructed view of their tower would create a positive, and it would do irreparable harm to our already heavily compromised urban fabric.
I don’t know that much about SandRidge, but what I know is good. I only hope that they are committed to doing the right thing for the city, and not just for the company.
I agree that they need to preserve some historical pieces but again I think it needs to be modernized. Make it stand out and mean something. Buildings and area that they can be proud of and be recognizable. Not just a boring building with even more boring building surrounding it.
This makes me feel a bit better:
Architects website: http://www.rogersmarvel.com/publicspaces.html