Our friend Charles Hill over at Dustbury brings this great quote to our attention:

“Any city gets what it admires, will pay for, and, ultimately, deserves. Even when we had Penn Station, we couldn’t afford to keep it clean. We want and deserve tin-can architecture in a tinhorn culture. And we will probably be judged not by the monuments we build but by those we have destroyed.”

Read more here.

In the past week since the Downtown Design Review Committee, Planning Department and Public Works clashed on the proposed makeover of the Civic Center park, I’ve heard only negative comments about the designs by Rand Elliott and Tulsa-based PDG Inc., which call for the removal of all trees (some of the biggest trees to be found downtown), sculptures, monuments and other landscaping. Read the full story on that debate here.

Rand Elliott doesn’t think small – I think it’s safe to say everyone would agree he always attempts to hit a home-run – he aspires to create great, eye-catching architecture and design. And I think his biggest fans and even his greatest critics would agree that the city is better off with his imprint. But what if one of those high-flying balls ends up being a foul? Will anyone tell the slugger when his latest hit didn’t go so well?

That’s the question ahead ahead for those who see this hit as a foul ball rather than a home run. I’m hearing that any differences between city planners and engineers is being ironed out behind the scenes and that the rare display of disagreement will disappear with a reapplication of the designs that skip over, for now, questions about the proposed archway, spinning towers and City Hall fountain.

Of course, that still leaves a lot of questions unresolved. I’ve been asked by more than a dozen different readers what they need to do to voice their opposition to these designs. They say these designs were not fully vetted, and some also are questioning whether the committee that reviewed this work consisted of too many people hand-selected by the design team.

This project HAS NOT been approved by the mayor and council. It must get five or more votes to move forward. So to those asking how they can voice their disapproval – or approval – now is the time to contact the mayor and council.

Contacts:

Ward 1 Councilman Gary Marrs: ward1@okc.gov

Ward 2 Councilman Ed Shadid: ward2@okc.gov

Ward 3 Councilman Larry McAtee: ward3@okc.gov

Ward 4 Councilman Pete White: ward4@okc.gov

Ward 5 Councilman David Greenwell: ward5@okc.gov

Ward 6 Councilwoman Meg Salyer: ward6@okc.gov

Ward 7 Councilman Skip Kelly: ward7@okc.gov

Ward 8 Councilman Pat Ryan: ward8@okc.gov

Mayor Mick Cornett: mayor@okc.gov

The Rock Island Plow Building can be seen to the right of the now vanished MKT Train Depot in this vintage mid-20th century photo (courtesy of the Oklahoma Railway Museum)

Over at www.downtownontherange.blogspot.com, Nick Roberts is continuing to put his own stamp on the discussion of downtown Oklahoma City’s ongoing transformation. Nick, who is pursuing a planning degree in college, is able to take that discussion a bit further than I can due to our different roles in the blogging world. I try to offer news and observation (and sometimes very uncomfortable questions posed to those I cover), while Nick goes straight to commentary. He’s good at what he does. But confusion sometimes emerges. Last summer developer Richard Tanenbaum put up a slide of quotes praising his track record and attributed it to OKC Central – when it actually was written by Nick over at Downtown on the Range.
Nick and I are often thinking about the same topics. This time we’re both thinking about Avis Scaramucci, owner of Nonna’s and The Painted Door in Bricktown, and who is going on her fourth year as chair of the Bricktown Association (she also serves of chair of the Bricktown Urban Design Committee).  A few weeks ago, I took the following photo:

Yep, that’s more windows getting covered with plywood over at the Rock Island Plow Building. Keep in mind it’s a structure that is on the National Register of Historic Places. Before I could post anything on OKC Central, Nick posted his own photo with the following quote:

Does a single successful restaurant make someone the “Queen of Bricktown?” So far Avis has done nothing to prove that she wasn’t one and done in terms of Bricktown development, and how did this get to be the person chairing the Bricktown Suburban Design Committee?

Ouch.
So I guess Nick would be none too thrilled to see more plywood going up on windows at the 100-year-old Rock Island Plow building, which Avis owns. It’s the ONLY boarded up structure left in Bricktown, and it’s along Reno Avenue where thousands of visitors travel daily, both by foot and by vehicle. It’s a prime corridor for tourists and those attending NBA games at the nearby Chesapeake Energy Arena.
County records show Avis and her husband Phil bought the building for $1,450,000 in 2003. I’m also aware they spent a significant amount of money doing emergency structural repairs several years ago that, if not done, we likely would have lost this building all together.
I’ve been hearing complaints similar to those voiced by Nick, and I asked Avis why the wait – why not move forward with a development or simply sell the building to someone who will make something happen. I know they’ve had willing buyers – parties with a track record of successful development. So far, Avis’ response is simply “now is not the time.”
This won’t make Nick any happier. And I fully anticipate he’ll have more to say on this matter.

The Hotel Marion at NW 10 and Broadway is probably familiar to most OKC Central regulars. It’s a heart breaker of a building that passed through several owners before landing with the MidTown Renaissance group a few years ago. Give Bob Howard, Mickey Clagg and Chris Fleming credit, they’ve shown their dedication toward renovating and properly restoring their older buildings, but the Marion is the one building that eludes even bravest of souls in the development world.

Downtown Brainstorming is just that – using the collective experience, observations and imagination of OKC Central readers to help solve problems such as the Marion. It will be done when the key decision makers indicate they welcome such input, and in this case, we have the go-ahead from Mr. Howard himself.

Before getting into the complications surrounding the Marion, let’s revisit some stories about the hotel’s history that help show why it deserves a new shot at life.

The Hotel Marion in its heyday of the mid-20th century. Photo courtesy of the Oklahoma Historical Society.

The hotel was built in 1908, making it, I believe the oldest surviving structure downtown after the razing of India Temple last year. In 2006, after the building was bought by MidTown Renaissance, I heard from one of the descendants of the hotel’s original owners. J. Malcolm Haney’s grandmother, Bess L. Haney, operated the hotel from 1946 to 1971.

Malcolm correctly recalled the hotel’s east facade for years had a sign that boasted it was “The Nicest Small Hotel You’ll Find.”

“This place has a very special place in our family’s past,” Haney told me. “Our safe haven was staying at the Marion with Bessie in room 110, which had two single beds … Many of Bessie’s rooms were occupied by permanent residents, including three terrific small apartments in the basement. It was the last place many army recruits stayed before they shipped off to boot camp because the U.S. Army recruiting center was across the street.”

Haney’s cousin Bob Villareal recalled the hotel’s telephone booth had a ventilation fan that turned on upon entry.

“You could put your finger in the fan without injury,”

Villareal said. Villareal still remembers the hotel’s corner room, home to an old radio and his grandmother’s parakeet. Photographs from Bess Haney’s lifetime were displayed throughout the hotel.

“I’ll never forget the smells in that old place,” Villareal said. “There was a certain aura about the hotel that’s hard to put in words, but it always felt peaceful and happy. Of course, it was never the same without Bessie. She was the heart of the Marion.”

More recently, my worthy competitor Brianna Bailey at the Journal Record shared even more about the hotel’s history. She shared how the Marion was next to an Army recruiting station, and the Haneys saw countless young servicemen from across the state off to the Vietnam and Korean wars over the years.

Malcolm Haney told Brianna about how the hotel’s old-fashioned soda pop machine that would dispense soft drinks in glass bottles for 10 cents.

“Bessie had an old-fashioned telephone switchboard and would patch people through to the rooms,” Malcolm Haney said. “It was a warm family place and Bessie was the matriarch of the family.”

So what went wrong?

Haney told Bailey that time was the enemy with downtown descending into decline in the 1970s. Chain hotels drew customers away from the Marion.

“Bessie fought the battle of any small hotel operator against the large chain hotels and she fought the downfall of downtown of ’60s and ’70s,” Malcolm Haney told Bailey. Bess Haney’s five children asked their then-elderly mother to retire from the Marion in the 1970s, and she died in 1984 at the age of 95.

The Hotel Marion in the late 1970s.

So we have a nice historical, architectural gem with a warm and fuzzy history to make us all go “awwwwwwwwww.” With that done, let’s get the harsh slap of reality started.

The building is a mess. The interior consists of rotting wood. The roof is barely there. As I pointed out on this blog a few months ago, the dreadful appearance of jigsaw cracks has emerged along the building’s corners.

See a jig-saw line going down the corner of an old building may not be a good omen of what's to come.... Preservationists take note - this is one of the city's oldest structures.

Here’s the good news: Bob Howard KNOWS he’s going to lose money with this building. He is no fool. And as Rep. David Dank pushes to eliminate historic tax credits, understand it’s buildings like this that become impossible to save without such assistance. Tax credits saved the Skirvin hotel. Tax credits saved the Gold Dome. Tax credits saved the Sieber.

But tax credits won’t save the Marion. It’s just not enough. Howard says he’s prepared to make this his contribution to the community. He appreciates the history and architecture of the Marion. And if money were the only concern here (understand, however, Howard isn’t going to bankrupt himself on this either), then I doubt the Marion would be our first Downtown Brainstorming candidate.

Talking to Howard and his partner Fleming, it’s clear that one risks killing the Marion if one is to save it.

The interior must be gutted. That means that support beams must be put in to prop up the facade walls much as Marva Ellard did with the old grocery building section of the Sieber. But the Marion is a very tight spot, locked in by properties with different owners.

It is surrounded by occupied buildings, and the parking is heavily used by the law firm to the west. The street, NW 10, is a major corridor that would be a nightmare to shut down, if city folks were willing to even entertain such a move. And even if the Marion had some working space around it, the engineering on this is a puzzle.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; the readers make OKC Central special. The conversations are a step above what’s found elsewhere on the ‘net, including the comment sections on NewsOK. I’m proud of that, far more than anything else I’ve accomplished with this site. You’ve been around the world. You’ve followed urban design closely. You’re argumentative, but respectfully so. You bring new ideas. You love downtown Oklahoma City. You’re proud of what’s been done. You’re not satisfied that enough has been done. You’re always pushing for it to be better. And you want to solve downtown’s biggest problems.

Here’s your chance. Are there landmarks elsewhere in the world that have had similar challenges? How were they overcome? What can be done to make the Marion a feasible renovation?

The Aldridge Hotel in Shawnee - before state historic tax credits were used to renovate the blighted landmark into apartments.

The Aldridge Hotel after renovations that included state historic tax credits for financing.

I think the world of Oklahoma Watch, the non-profit news venture that partners up with The Oklahoman, Tulsa World and other news outlets around the state on in-depth public interest stories.
A story in today’s Oklahoman, which isn’t online (UPDATE: read it here), about a task force led by Rep. David Dank examining whether to cut back or eliminate historic tax credits takes an assumption by Dank and treats it as fact: that these tax credits primarily benefit larger cities like Oklahoma City and Tulsa.
To those of you associated with Main Street programs around the state, to those of you in the preservation community, I’d advise this is something you’ll want to watch carefully.
A few back I was lucky enough to get to travel around the state, visiting with Main Street business owners from Poteau to Miami to Stillwater. I personally saw examples of treasured, yet neglected Main Street properties brought back to life with the help of these tax credits. If these credits are limited to the major cities, then please explain that definition as it applies to Shawnee (where tax credits helped on renovating the Aldridge Hotel) and in Muskogee (the Surety Apartments).
Maybe these tax credits are good, maybe they’re bad. But a look at the facts will show these tax credits have been used quite a bit in small town Oklahoma.

This old wooden building - once likely a grocery - has been boarded up and empty for decades.

But what if…..

It could look like this?

New Year's Eve revelers traveling along Classen last night saw one of the last truly urban stretches being devasted by flames. Photo courtesy of Sid Burgess.

Looks like these buildings are now history. It’s not that we weren’t warned that these buildings, built in the 1920s, were being targeted for extinction. Owners tried twice to get permission to tear them down as the area’s Asian community continues to erect concrete block retail strips with cute nods to the area’s emphasis on Asian design.

On the second go-around, with the local preservation community sidelined, exhausted from their unsuccessful fight with SandRidge Energy over its demolition plans, the owners of this strip succeeded in winning approval for demolition.

On Twitter, some on are asking… was this really an accidental fire? That’s a question that awaits the fire department now. Meanwhile, let’s look back at what this block looked like. Were there really no development options with this? Sit back and discuss.

Here’s a photo of the building’s early appearance:

The building is one of five structures being torn down by SandRidge Energy to make way for a landscaped plaza. A sixth building at 120 Robert S. Kerr will be torn down as well and replaced with a new building.

Expect the old bank building to be history within just a few days, if not sooner.