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Bert Belanger kept to his word and bulldozed a series of flop houses on Broadway Drive that have been an annoyance to downtowners for the past 20 years. There is something seriously wrong with a property when the arrival of sex offenders is considered an improvement over the previous tenants. The sex offenders were forced to move out earlier this year after neighbors complained they were to close to the Oklahoma School and Science and Math. It was then that Bert bought the properties from Hand Up Ministries.

Bert is to appear at Downtown Design Review Committee this week on plans to tear down the neighboring former nursing home, which has been empty for several years and is also a less than flattering image for passersby driving into Automobile Alley.

It was an intriguing moment when I first heard from Blair Humphreys that he was pursuing a career in planning. His older brother Grant was already making his mark as a new urbanist developer. Their father, Kirk, was a typical suburban developer before he was elected mayor in 1998. And while he too had made a pretty dramatic transition to focusing on the needs of the innercity during his tenure in office, younger son Blair appeared to be going further than Kirk or Grant - with their support, he began his pursuit of planning at the feet of architect and professor Hans Butzer and future planning director Russell Claus.

Yep, Blair was diving in deep. Having gotten to know his family over the years, I couldn’t help but ask - “Are you prepared to hear criticism against the very sort of suburban development done by your family in previous years?”

Yep, he was. But so too, it appeared, was his father who joined him in launching a local chapter of the Urban Land Institute. And before leaving to study at MIT last year, Blair was coming up with some pretty interesting ideas about changing downtown street patterns.

It’s hard to believe it’s been a year since I last talked to Blair. But now he’s back - with a blog, www.imaginativeamerica.com, and it’s very interesting to see how far he’s advanced in his thinking about downtown development.

This all sets up the sort of potential family dynasty that could leave a mark on OKC for years to come: Kirk, the statesman and former city mayor continuing to influence the city’s direction, Grant, the ambitious urban developer, and Blair, the planner challenging the status quo of his beloved hometown.

At least that’s the take from a reporter who likes to come up with a good storyline. As evidenced by a neighborhood meeting gathered last week to debate Grant’s proposed development at NW 36 and Walker, not everyone thinks highly of the Humphreys. Some suspect the worst, assuming the Humphreys are a powerful clan out to enrich themselves.

Of course, such polarity in viewpoints only makes for an even better story. And ultimately, the Humphreys’ legacy will speak for itself. For now, I’m just enjoying being the fly on the wall, privledged to witness this transformation of a family that seems destined to help shape downtown Oklahoma City for years to come.

The Greater Oklahoma City Chamber is moving forward with building a four-story new headquarters at NW 4 and Broadway and is releasing renderings by architect Frankfurt Short Bruza. Read first story here.

Randy Hogan, “Bricktown Entertainment Center,” now “Lower Bricktown,” 2004, Oklahoman Archives

The original concept.

That’s the question as plans change once again in Lower Bricktown. More than a year ago developer Randy Hogan was planning on building this two-story retail complex between Harkins Theater and Toby Keith’s I Love this Bar and Grill. Now we know from a story in today’s business section that plans have changed.

The update has posters at www.okctalk.com upset - they’ve typically not been big fans of Hogan. One longtime poster and visitor to this blog commented that the latest changes are a reminder of why he preferred one-time Hogan rival Moshe Tal.

Over the past decade, Tal has sued more than two dozen city officials, at least three of his own former legal teams and several judges who heard his cases - all of this pretty much related to his complaints over not being selected for the Lower Bricktown project.

Before any construction can take place, Hogan will need to obtain design approval from the Urban Renewal Authority - a board whose members are selected by the mayor and where deliberations are required to be conducted at a public meeting.

With everything going on these past two weeks, you might have missed some deals quietly moving along in the background. So what did we miss?Well, to begin with, the deal between Oklahoma City and the Oklahoma City Public School System that would have resulted in school administrators moving into downtown’s Journal Record Building is dead.

The district initially negotiated to buy 70,000 square feet of the 110,000 square-foot building at a cost of $8.5 million. The deal was delayed week after week by city officials who initially believed the deal was inevitable. But this week the item was scratched for good.

The Bricktown Urban Design Committee last week approved plans to repair and cover a stucco finish at 3 E Main. The century-old building originally had a brick facade, but architects reported removal of the stucco was cost prohibitive. The building is being renovated into the corporate headquarters for Standley Systems. The company bought the three-story building, built in 1901, for $937,500 last year.

It’s empty and available. Got any ideas? 

An interesting parlour game discussion is underway at www.tulsanow.org that asks the following:

Many times, we talk about certain locally-owned businesses going in (or worse, leaving) downtown, the creative re- and mixed-use of buildings, and high-quality urban design. We always want these local, creative-types to open places for us, but we don’t really go out and do it ourselves…So I’d like to challenge each of us on here to create an idea for a business of our own that incorporate all of these elements. I think it could be fun…If you could open up any kind of business in downtown, what would you open and why? …Or, if you don’t want to open one, what would you like to see downtown?

I’ve taken the questions that followed and changed them so they might relate to downtown Oklahoma City. So tell me:

-Your location/intersection (or current building) within downtown
-How you would re-use a current building or construct to match
-How many floors is the building?
-Who will occupy the upper floors?
-What would the inside look like? (Bricktown? MidTown? Flat Iron? Western Avenue? Paseo?)
-Would you incorporate green building materials?
-What type of business is it? Restaurant/Retail/Entertainment, etc.
-What segment you cater to?
-How would you draw people in from the suburbs who don’t patronize downtown establishments?

And to take this discussion one step further, what would you do with the following properties along Sheridan Avenue just west of the Myriad Gardens and Stage Center?  

 Will anyone fight to save this fire station from being torn down in 50 years?

Oklahoma City Fire Station 37, built in 1996, Oklahoman Archives

I’ve been thinking more about the city’s decision to build a new fire station at the east entrance to Bricktown. Old Downtown Guy suggests we shouldn’t be trying to mimick designs of stations of decades past - but rather come up with a new design that still complements the area.

So here are some stations that caught my eye cruising the Internet. The first one, shown above, is located in Ashland, Oregon, and is clearly the pride of the community. The story below is from the city’s web site:

Ashland Fire & Rescue Station #1
Owners: City of Ashland - Keith Woodley, Fire Chief/Project Manager
Architects: Peck Smiley Ettlin Architects
Contractor: Adroit Construction

What started out as a small early 1900’s auto service repair and gas station and later converted into a fire station is now the site of one of the most attractive buildings in the City and probably one of the most attractive fire stations on the West Coast.Prior to the City’s commitment to reconstruct the fire station, the old fire/gas station was considered by manyin the community as an unattractive site with dangerous ingress and egress access.

Since the building’s completion, the community has embrace the building with enthusiasm.

The street activity along the frontage clearly demonstrates a positive aesthetic impact as well as a financial benefit shared throughout the Downtown area.In an age when projects of this type do not consider “human scale” design or orientation or have such recessed parking bays, they create a “missing tooth” in the Main Street façade.

Also, new fire stations are typically built near the city’s fringe - fragmenting any potential lationship to downtown businesses and the community. Ashland Fire & Rescue Station #1 shows vision for future developments in the City.The Historic Commission would like to thank not only the citizens of Ashland for providing the funds to build the station, but also the Ashland City Council for providing the necessary direction and vision for our community’s future.

Mesa, Arizona Fire Station No. 217
Architect: Wood Associates Architects, Inc., Mesa

Columbia, Missouri, Peckham & Wright Architects

 So now that the Oklahoama City Council has approved buying a site at Sheridan and Lincoln, at the east entrance into Bricktown, for a new fire station, what should it look like? City officials promise the station will be designed to fit into Bricktown. Should architects get some inspiration from the fire department’s early days? Here are a couple of stations from from the OCFD’s early, early, early days. (photos from the Oklahoma Historical Society)