an economist at Oklahoma City University says the idea is Pie in the Sky
January 27, 2024 10:12 AM Subscribe
CNN: Developers want to build America's tallest skyscraper in an unlikely location: Oklahoma City. And they want it to be, in part, an apartment building.
More in this daZeen article:
More in this daZeen article:
The Boardwalk at Bricktown is a "mixed-use marvel" [which] will include hotels, condominiums, retail and commercial space and "1,776 residential units ranging from market-rate to affordable workforce and luxury options."Does the Sooner State capital really have a market for thousands of urban high-rise apartments? Or are these architectural renderings as far as the project gets?
This is... just why? And the pictures from the daZeen article really drive that question home. You know what Oklahoma's got in spades? Cheap land! It's not Manhattan. There is no need for this.
Though it does remind me of the Price Tower in my folks' hometown of Bartlesville, OK. This was Frank Lloyd Wright's only skyscraper, originally planned for Manhattan, and then scaled down to roughly 1/3 the size because Bartlesville was where he could actually get it built. It's easily one of the wildest buildings I've ever been in.
posted by Navelgazer at 10:23 AM on January 27 [16 favorites]
Though it does remind me of the Price Tower in my folks' hometown of Bartlesville, OK. This was Frank Lloyd Wright's only skyscraper, originally planned for Manhattan, and then scaled down to roughly 1/3 the size because Bartlesville was where he could actually get it built. It's easily one of the wildest buildings I've ever been in.
posted by Navelgazer at 10:23 AM on January 27 [16 favorites]
if you build an arcology, air force nerds will come?
look we have to burn all this oil futures money on something really fast, and real estate and construction are the twin financial hidey-holes
too bad there's no plan for like, a school system. could you hide a school system inside this thing? and doctors?
posted by eustatic at 10:25 AM on January 27 [13 favorites]
look we have to burn all this oil futures money on something really fast, and real estate and construction are the twin financial hidey-holes
too bad there's no plan for like, a school system. could you hide a school system inside this thing? and doctors?
posted by eustatic at 10:25 AM on January 27 [13 favorites]
Assume it will be empty and have drones around it to shoot homeless people.
posted by Artw at 10:26 AM on January 27 [14 favorites]
posted by Artw at 10:26 AM on January 27 [14 favorites]
Wild that in the linked Dazeen article about eight towers that are under construction (https://www.dezeen.com/2024/01/18/eight-upcoming-skyscrapers-in-the-united-states/) Austin beats NYC three to two.
posted by chasing at 10:39 AM on January 27 [2 favorites]
posted by chasing at 10:39 AM on January 27 [2 favorites]
... it does remind me of the Price Tower in my folks' hometown of Bartlesville, OK.
I was going to mention Price Tower myself! As the story (probably apocryphal) goes, when Price was discussing the project with Wright he said "I wanted a 3 story building and he wanted a 5 story building, so we compromised and made it 19." My grandfather was a metallurgist for Phillips Petroleum at the time and my mother went with him to the grand opening. She was fascinated by Wright (as were many other women) but my grandfather was distinctly unimpressed by his engineering ability.
As for the actual subject of the FPP, I will be very surprised if that goes anywhere. Oklahoma has taken a very hard right in culture war issues, and I can't see it attracting the number and kind of people it would require to make something like that succeed
posted by TedW at 10:40 AM on January 27 [6 favorites]
I was going to mention Price Tower myself! As the story (probably apocryphal) goes, when Price was discussing the project with Wright he said "I wanted a 3 story building and he wanted a 5 story building, so we compromised and made it 19." My grandfather was a metallurgist for Phillips Petroleum at the time and my mother went with him to the grand opening. She was fascinated by Wright (as were many other women) but my grandfather was distinctly unimpressed by his engineering ability.
As for the actual subject of the FPP, I will be very surprised if that goes anywhere. Oklahoma has taken a very hard right in culture war issues, and I can't see it attracting the number and kind of people it would require to make something like that succeed
posted by TedW at 10:40 AM on January 27 [6 favorites]
1,750 apartments
that's a lot for one building, and also not a lot, in the general scheme of things of housing supply for a growing city.
on a per-unit basis I guess it's more economic to add a floor of condos vs building laterally each with independent roofing, exterior structure, landscaping, etc.
not much visual interest out to the horizon, alas, so no big scenic wins with the altitude, I guess.
I had a dream once where I lived in a big condo tenement where there were no individual units per se, all the various types of rooms all opened to the neighboring rooms like the Winchester Mystery House, so where my place ended and the neighbors' began was unclear.
posted by torokunai at 10:41 AM on January 27 [5 favorites]
that's a lot for one building, and also not a lot, in the general scheme of things of housing supply for a growing city.
on a per-unit basis I guess it's more economic to add a floor of condos vs building laterally each with independent roofing, exterior structure, landscaping, etc.
not much visual interest out to the horizon, alas, so no big scenic wins with the altitude, I guess.
I had a dream once where I lived in a big condo tenement where there were no individual units per se, all the various types of rooms all opened to the neighboring rooms like the Winchester Mystery House, so where my place ended and the neighbors' began was unclear.
posted by torokunai at 10:41 AM on January 27 [5 favorites]
As is often the case, Ballard has already written our future.
posted by cupcakeninja at 10:42 AM on January 27 [7 favorites]
posted by cupcakeninja at 10:42 AM on January 27 [7 favorites]
One would think the increasing numbers of earthquakes that Oklahoma has been experiencing over the past 15 years would make anyone think twice before building a super-tall building there.
posted by hippybear at 10:48 AM on January 27 [12 favorites]
posted by hippybear at 10:48 AM on January 27 [12 favorites]
Look at all the free publicity for the tallest one, not yet funded. I'm wondering about tornadoes and skyscrapers.
posted by Brian B. at 10:57 AM on January 27 [5 favorites]
posted by Brian B. at 10:57 AM on January 27 [5 favorites]
So… how will this interact with tornados?
posted by eviemath at 10:58 AM on January 27 [6 favorites]
posted by eviemath at 10:58 AM on January 27 [6 favorites]
So… how will this interact with tornados?
Let's fill it full of rich people and find out.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 11:09 AM on January 27 [47 favorites]
Let's fill it full of rich people and find out.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 11:09 AM on January 27 [47 favorites]
Although, I say interact with because tall buildings impact local wind currents, so possibly a mega skyscraper is less likely to be totalled by a tornado? But if so, the question is then do they contribute to generating more tornados nearby? Fewer? Just redirect ones that would already occur? I don’t really know the dynamics at all beyond knowing that there are some bi-directional effects (tornadoes on skyscrapers and skyscrapers on tornadoes).
posted by eviemath at 11:34 AM on January 27 [3 favorites]
posted by eviemath at 11:34 AM on January 27 [3 favorites]
It’s projects like this that give skyscrapers a bad name.
posted by skyscraper at 11:51 AM on January 27 [13 favorites]
posted by skyscraper at 11:51 AM on January 27 [13 favorites]
beyond knowing that there are some bi-directional effects (tornadoes on skyscrapers and skyscrapers on tornadoes).
Where did you learn that? I've never heard that claimed, and it seems implausible to me that skyscrapers would have much of an effect at all.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 11:55 AM on January 27 [1 favorite]
Where did you learn that? I've never heard that claimed, and it seems implausible to me that skyscrapers would have much of an effect at all.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 11:55 AM on January 27 [1 favorite]
Ok, tornadoes, but that Waldorf Miami tower is just a taunt to Atlantic Hurricanes. Do not challenge Neptune, y'all
posted by eustatic at 12:08 PM on January 27 [3 favorites]
posted by eustatic at 12:08 PM on January 27 [3 favorites]
A couple of tall buildings have been hit by tornadoes, including Metrotower in Lubbock TX, supposedly the tallest building (20 stories) directly hit by an F5 tornado and 35 story Bank One Tower in Ft Worth TX, both suffered exterior damage but are still used today.
posted by The_Vegetables at 12:09 PM on January 27 [9 favorites]
posted by The_Vegetables at 12:09 PM on January 27 [9 favorites]
All skyscrapers eventually become groundscrapers.
posted by Faint of Butt at 12:28 PM on January 27 [4 favorites]
posted by Faint of Butt at 12:28 PM on January 27 [4 favorites]
that's a lot for one building, and also not a lot, in the general scheme of things of housing supply for a growing city.
Us normies think of them as places to live, but really should think of them as financial instruments. All those needle thin uninhabitable towers in NY aren’t constructed to be occupied.
posted by Artw at 12:33 PM on January 27 [11 favorites]
Us normies think of them as places to live, but really should think of them as financial instruments. All those needle thin uninhabitable towers in NY aren’t constructed to be occupied.
posted by Artw at 12:33 PM on January 27 [11 favorites]
My kid sketched up an artist's rendition of his dream home, which is inspired by the White House but will feature 500,000 rooms and be taller than Mount Everest and also it will be red. Anyone have CNN's contact info so they can help me publicize this important story
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 12:49 PM on January 27 [36 favorites]
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 12:49 PM on January 27 [36 favorites]
1750 apartments in one development is amateur hour in Toronto.
posted by seanmpuckett at 12:50 PM on January 27 [4 favorites]
posted by seanmpuckett at 12:50 PM on January 27 [4 favorites]
"but that Waldorf Miami tower is just a taunt to Atlantic Hurricanes"
Hurricanes? That looks like if you gave it a poke near the foundation it would jenga on down
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 1:45 PM on January 27 [3 favorites]
Hurricanes? That looks like if you gave it a poke near the foundation it would jenga on down
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 1:45 PM on January 27 [3 favorites]
To be fair, large buildings in Florida just fall down on their own even without hurricanes.
posted by hippybear at 1:51 PM on January 27 [8 favorites]
posted by hippybear at 1:51 PM on January 27 [8 favorites]
Does the Sooner State capital really have a market for thousands of urban high-rise apartments?
I certainly didn't get that impression when I lived in OK in the mid-nineties.
posted by Halloween Jack at 2:16 PM on January 27 [2 favorites]
I certainly didn't get that impression when I lived in OK in the mid-nineties.
posted by Halloween Jack at 2:16 PM on January 27 [2 favorites]
What happened to the YIMBY vibes?
posted by Selena777 at 2:19 PM on January 27 [2 favorites]
posted by Selena777 at 2:19 PM on January 27 [2 favorites]
Toronto has 7 supertall skyscrapers in development. 2 are under Construction. 4 additional have been approved
I would not care to live on the 100th floor.
In downtown Toronto you'd be looking down at aircraft landing at the Island airport
posted by yyz at 3:11 PM on January 27 [3 favorites]
I would not care to live on the 100th floor.
In downtown Toronto you'd be looking down at aircraft landing at the Island airport
posted by yyz at 3:11 PM on January 27 [3 favorites]
OKC is about four hours from Dallas and they have a nice museum, plus a friend of Mr Epigrams is a (Dem, don't yell) lawmaker from Tulsa. We go up there for a long weekend every now and again and stay in Bricktown.
There is nothing else like that in OKC and nothing in Bricktown, which is a walking hotel/restaurant district around their ballpark, suggests that a 100-story skyscraper would be needed or wanted as part of the area. The hotels we stay in there are 6ish stories, no more than 10. This project is out of scale. I don't think they will come if someone builds it and I really don't think they'll build it in its current form.
posted by gentlyepigrams at 3:41 PM on January 27 [4 favorites]
There is nothing else like that in OKC and nothing in Bricktown, which is a walking hotel/restaurant district around their ballpark, suggests that a 100-story skyscraper would be needed or wanted as part of the area. The hotels we stay in there are 6ish stories, no more than 10. This project is out of scale. I don't think they will come if someone builds it and I really don't think they'll build it in its current form.
posted by gentlyepigrams at 3:41 PM on January 27 [4 favorites]
Yay! Now the Osage Nation can look down on their oppressors!
posted by Ideefixe at 3:43 PM on January 27 [4 favorites]
posted by Ideefixe at 3:43 PM on January 27 [4 favorites]
Maybe we could just move some empty office buildings out of downtown Midland, Texas and stack them on top one another?
posted by credulous at 3:45 PM on January 27 [1 favorite]
posted by credulous at 3:45 PM on January 27 [1 favorite]
That jenga tower in Miami looks like what a hurricane might leave onshore after it passes through.
posted by lhauser at 4:07 PM on January 27 [2 favorites]
posted by lhauser at 4:07 PM on January 27 [2 favorites]
Funding for the project will come from multiple sources, he said, including $200 million in subsidies approved by the city. The firm is also pursuing additional state and federal funding.
And who says America isn't a socialist country?
posted by AlSweigart at 4:59 PM on January 27 [11 favorites]
And who says America isn't a socialist country?
posted by AlSweigart at 4:59 PM on January 27 [11 favorites]
I agree the earthquakes are going to be an issue.
posted by olykate at 5:16 PM on January 27 [1 favorite]
posted by olykate at 5:16 PM on January 27 [1 favorite]
I would say, "everything going on in Oklahoma" is going to be an issue.
(And I have people from there, and the Ozarks, and etc.). But as a gamer, height advantage = more FP.
Not planning on moving there, no siree!
posted by Windopaene at 5:31 PM on January 27 [1 favorite]
(And I have people from there, and the Ozarks, and etc.). But as a gamer, height advantage = more FP.
Not planning on moving there, no siree!
posted by Windopaene at 5:31 PM on January 27 [1 favorite]
I don't think they will come if someone builds it and I really don't think they'll build it in its current form.
I don't disagree, but Tulsa has the City of Faith (fundraising for which was where the Oral Roberts "I'll be called home to Jesus" thing came from) got built. Devon built their unnecessarily tall building in OKC, too. Point being that Oklahoma has a long history of building unnecessarily tall buildings. Sometimes they work out, sometimes they end up like Tulsa's OneOk Plaza, cut down several times during construction.
posted by wierdo at 5:32 PM on January 27 [2 favorites]
I don't disagree, but Tulsa has the City of Faith (fundraising for which was where the Oral Roberts "I'll be called home to Jesus" thing came from) got built. Devon built their unnecessarily tall building in OKC, too. Point being that Oklahoma has a long history of building unnecessarily tall buildings. Sometimes they work out, sometimes they end up like Tulsa's OneOk Plaza, cut down several times during construction.
posted by wierdo at 5:32 PM on January 27 [2 favorites]
Didn’t one of them there TV preachers in Okie land have a vision of a 900 foot Jesus? Maybe this here building could have a picture of Jesus on one side to fulfill that there prophecy in his dream.
posted by njohnson23 at 5:38 PM on January 27 [4 favorites]
posted by njohnson23 at 5:38 PM on January 27 [4 favorites]
I'm in a town of 60k. We could absorb 1,750 units and still be behind our Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) numbers. I doubt it would lower our housing costs a bit, quite a few or our NIMBYs argue it would raise them.
I don't know a thing about the actual feasibility, but this country generally is so far behind on building housing (and, yeah, Northern California more so, thus my view is skewed), and if we're gonna do jack do address climate change, it needs to be dense.
posted by straw at 6:12 PM on January 27 [6 favorites]
I don't know a thing about the actual feasibility, but this country generally is so far behind on building housing (and, yeah, Northern California more so, thus my view is skewed), and if we're gonna do jack do address climate change, it needs to be dense.
posted by straw at 6:12 PM on January 27 [6 favorites]
I don't think the existence of earthquakes is really an insurmountable problem. There are plenty of tall buildings in more earthquake prone locations than Oklahoma. Just off the top of my head Taipei 101 is in a city that gets both earthquakes and typhoons, and I'm sure there are plenty of other examples (that's one I just happened to have been in recently). Though it would add to the already hilarious cost of building such a thing.
I am also generally a fan of mixed use buildings. The two tallest buildings in Edmonton, the J.W. Mariott and Stantec Tower, are both condos on top, and are adjacent to the Rogers place. Which sounds like generally what they are going for in OKC (high end condos next to big downtown sports thing). While I may never be able to afford to live in the ice district, I think more housing downtown makes this a better neighbourhood overall. More people living here means more local businesses can make a go of it, and more of those businesses will actually be open outside of the 9 to 5.
Looking at Oklahoma City skyline, it has a similar vibe to Edmonton: one huge building >250m (the Devon Energy Center in OKC and Stantec Tower in YEG) and the rest well under 150m. Imagine looking out on that skyline and seeing another that is more than twice the next largest (581m). Just wild. That said, so many of these renderings and announcements only ever end up as that: a rendering and an announcement.
posted by selenized at 6:33 PM on January 27 [2 favorites]
I am also generally a fan of mixed use buildings. The two tallest buildings in Edmonton, the J.W. Mariott and Stantec Tower, are both condos on top, and are adjacent to the Rogers place. Which sounds like generally what they are going for in OKC (high end condos next to big downtown sports thing). While I may never be able to afford to live in the ice district, I think more housing downtown makes this a better neighbourhood overall. More people living here means more local businesses can make a go of it, and more of those businesses will actually be open outside of the 9 to 5.
Looking at Oklahoma City skyline, it has a similar vibe to Edmonton: one huge building >250m (the Devon Energy Center in OKC and Stantec Tower in YEG) and the rest well under 150m. Imagine looking out on that skyline and seeing another that is more than twice the next largest (581m). Just wild. That said, so many of these renderings and announcements only ever end up as that: a rendering and an announcement.
posted by selenized at 6:33 PM on January 27 [2 favorites]
Toronto has 7 supertall skyscrapers in development. 2 are under Construction. 4 additional have been approved
I was going to add that same link. Yeah it's cool/weird that this proposed for Oklahoma City, but if you want to talk skyscraper construction then come north to Toronto. We've got so many skyscrapers under construction that our crane count isn't just higher than any other North America city, it's five times the next highest city (240 in Toronto vs 45 in Seattle), and is roughly the same as all of the major American cities combined.
posted by thecjm at 7:24 PM on January 27 [3 favorites]
I was going to add that same link. Yeah it's cool/weird that this proposed for Oklahoma City, but if you want to talk skyscraper construction then come north to Toronto. We've got so many skyscrapers under construction that our crane count isn't just higher than any other North America city, it's five times the next highest city (240 in Toronto vs 45 in Seattle), and is roughly the same as all of the major American cities combined.
posted by thecjm at 7:24 PM on January 27 [3 favorites]
In downtown Toronto you'd be looking down at aircraft landing at the Island airport.
Well, I didn't want to live in a hundred story building until you made it sound fun!
posted by jacquilynne at 7:24 PM on January 27 [7 favorites]
Well, I didn't want to live in a hundred story building until you made it sound fun!
posted by jacquilynne at 7:24 PM on January 27 [7 favorites]
this country generally is so far behind on building housing... if we're gonna do jack do address climate change, it needs to be dense.
Something I wanted to mention (but was too lazy to figure out how, in the FPP) was Agenda 21, which I read of in Slate: Agenda 21, for Beginners; Obama Will Abolish the Suburbs? The Agenda 21 conspiracy to 'wipe out freedoms of all US citizens' and Right-wing Conspiracy Theories from the 1960s to Today. Someone called it a UN plan to confiscate F-150s and relocate suburbanites into cramped, inner-city apartments; and in a place like Oklahoma I'm sure a structure like this would be blamed on that Agenda.
posted by Rash at 7:40 PM on January 27 [1 favorite]
Something I wanted to mention (but was too lazy to figure out how, in the FPP) was Agenda 21, which I read of in Slate: Agenda 21, for Beginners; Obama Will Abolish the Suburbs? The Agenda 21 conspiracy to 'wipe out freedoms of all US citizens' and Right-wing Conspiracy Theories from the 1960s to Today. Someone called it a UN plan to confiscate F-150s and relocate suburbanites into cramped, inner-city apartments; and in a place like Oklahoma I'm sure a structure like this would be blamed on that Agenda.
posted by Rash at 7:40 PM on January 27 [1 favorite]
Hong Kong has very tall buildings, which are very much mixed use. It feels a bit more natural in scale when all of the buildings are quite tall, and the developed areas are surrounded by even taller mountains.
posted by eviemath at 7:56 PM on January 27 [1 favorite]
posted by eviemath at 7:56 PM on January 27 [1 favorite]
Can I just say, a mixed use building where there's a hotel contained within it and you go from the lobby to floor three to declare where you want to go and then to floor 24 to get to the hotel lobby and then the hotel itself is maybe floors 30-40 but the hotel restaurants are on the top floor of 46 and the rooftop, weather permitting....
that is mixed use that is a bit dizzying and confusing and maybe things should not be that way.
I experienced something much like this, the details maybe different but the experience identical, in Charlotte, NC in 2021. So it's not the future, it's the fucked-up now.
posted by hippybear at 8:03 PM on January 27
that is mixed use that is a bit dizzying and confusing and maybe things should not be that way.
I experienced something much like this, the details maybe different but the experience identical, in Charlotte, NC in 2021. So it's not the future, it's the fucked-up now.
posted by hippybear at 8:03 PM on January 27
Since it was mentioned, I ought to note that the kind of earthquakes (fracking quakes) don't really get strong enough to cause an issue for steel framed buildings, even without any particular attention being paid to seismic loads. Wind events can and do destroy high rise buildings, though.
In the mid 90s Williams started their second telecom company, which built itself a shiny new headquarters in downtown Tulsa next Williams' first vanity project that used to be the tallest building in Oklahoma. (It's basically one of the old WTC towers in miniature with a different treatment at the ground level)
With that digression over with, back to Wiltel's shiny glass cuboid. Just a few years after it was built, a severe thunderstorm rolled through with straight line winds that blew out a bunch of the windows on one face of the building, which isn't really that uncommon. What was uncommon is that it fucked up the structure on that side of the building. It was repairable, so it got repaired not long before the fiber glut sent Wiltel into bankruptcy. Thanks to that bankruptcy, Tulsa now has a pretty decent city hall. Much better than the old one, anyway.
About 15 years after that saga, an EF2 tornado tore through another part of Tulsa, doing moderate damage to some shopping centers and a Sam's Club and doing little damage to the bunker-like building that used to be the home of SABRE and Telex before them. Cold War nuclear blast resistant architecture for the win! It also hit a 20 story high rise, causing enough damage to the structure of the building that it was condemned for a while and there were serious questions about whether it would have to be demolished. Apparently it was finally fixed and converted to apartments last year.
Incidentally, a project like this would make a hell of a lot more sense in downtown Tulsa than in OKC. Tulsa has had a fairly decent number of residential units for decades. After downtown basically died in the late 80s, steps were being taken to get some residential development in the area and was beginning to bear fruit by the mid-2000s and it really took off by the time I left 10 years ago.
posted by wierdo at 9:38 PM on January 27 [5 favorites]
In the mid 90s Williams started their second telecom company, which built itself a shiny new headquarters in downtown Tulsa next Williams' first vanity project that used to be the tallest building in Oklahoma. (It's basically one of the old WTC towers in miniature with a different treatment at the ground level)
With that digression over with, back to Wiltel's shiny glass cuboid. Just a few years after it was built, a severe thunderstorm rolled through with straight line winds that blew out a bunch of the windows on one face of the building, which isn't really that uncommon. What was uncommon is that it fucked up the structure on that side of the building. It was repairable, so it got repaired not long before the fiber glut sent Wiltel into bankruptcy. Thanks to that bankruptcy, Tulsa now has a pretty decent city hall. Much better than the old one, anyway.
About 15 years after that saga, an EF2 tornado tore through another part of Tulsa, doing moderate damage to some shopping centers and a Sam's Club and doing little damage to the bunker-like building that used to be the home of SABRE and Telex before them. Cold War nuclear blast resistant architecture for the win! It also hit a 20 story high rise, causing enough damage to the structure of the building that it was condemned for a while and there were serious questions about whether it would have to be demolished. Apparently it was finally fixed and converted to apartments last year.
Incidentally, a project like this would make a hell of a lot more sense in downtown Tulsa than in OKC. Tulsa has had a fairly decent number of residential units for decades. After downtown basically died in the late 80s, steps were being taken to get some residential development in the area and was beginning to bear fruit by the mid-2000s and it really took off by the time I left 10 years ago.
posted by wierdo at 9:38 PM on January 27 [5 favorites]
My relative in Dallas is an elite structural engineer of skyscrapers and currently has 2 of the 3 tallest projects-under-construction in the US. Last year I got to go with him to look at those 2 buildings (I read this book in preparation for that). While acknowledging your concerns, I would like to see my nephew design this building.
posted by neuron at 10:05 PM on January 27 [3 favorites]
posted by neuron at 10:05 PM on January 27 [3 favorites]
Amateurs. If they merely make it 75 or so times taller it technically would have views of the ocean (Gulf of Mexico) from its top floors.
Ocean front views in Oklahoma? Now you don’t have to wait for climate change to make it happen!
posted by inflatablekiwi at 10:33 PM on January 27 [2 favorites]
Ocean front views in Oklahoma? Now you don’t have to wait for climate change to make it happen!
posted by inflatablekiwi at 10:33 PM on January 27 [2 favorites]
Funding for the project will come from multiple sources, he said, including $200 million in subsidies approved by the city. The firm is also pursuing additional state and federal funding.
And who says America isn't a socialist country?
There's plenty of Socialism in the USA for the rich.
posted by nikoniko at 11:09 PM on January 27 [4 favorites]
And who says America isn't a socialist country?
There's plenty of Socialism in the USA for the rich.
posted by nikoniko at 11:09 PM on January 27 [4 favorites]
You know what Oklahoma's got in spades? Cheap land! It's not Manhattan. There is no need for this.
This particular building may or may not be needed, but building up instead of sprawling out is the right idea, regardless of local land prices.
Oklahoma, like the rest of the world, doesn't need more standalone, single-family houses. Oklahoma needs tall mixed-use apartment buildings with stores and daycare and schools on the lower levels and apartments higher up.
Make it so a person working from home in a downtown apartment can get through the day without being encouraged (or forced) to leave the building and drive to various other places. Ideally, apartment buildings wouldn't be isolated, but clustered in neighborhoods on public transportation routes. Make them 100-percent friendly to walking and bicycling and 100-percent discouraging to driving.
posted by pracowity at 5:39 AM on January 28 [3 favorites]
This particular building may or may not be needed, but building up instead of sprawling out is the right idea, regardless of local land prices.
Oklahoma, like the rest of the world, doesn't need more standalone, single-family houses. Oklahoma needs tall mixed-use apartment buildings with stores and daycare and schools on the lower levels and apartments higher up.
Make it so a person working from home in a downtown apartment can get through the day without being encouraged (or forced) to leave the building and drive to various other places. Ideally, apartment buildings wouldn't be isolated, but clustered in neighborhoods on public transportation routes. Make them 100-percent friendly to walking and bicycling and 100-percent discouraging to driving.
posted by pracowity at 5:39 AM on January 28 [3 favorites]
An alternative to the extremes of "suburban sprawl" and (Corbusian) high-rises, is the post-war US planned communities with small one-story apartments grouped in clusters with lots of public green space away from the road. The Triangle area of North Carolina had a few places like this (Estes Park in Chapel Hill, a little is left, one in Raleigh that was recently destroyed), and maybe places like Reston, Virginia (not single story).
Not big moneymakers for developers, but really good for people.
posted by Vegiemon at 8:35 AM on January 28 [4 favorites]
Not big moneymakers for developers, but really good for people.
posted by Vegiemon at 8:35 AM on January 28 [4 favorites]
This reminds me of the proposed Bestseller Tower in a very rural (and flat—even flatter than the rest) of Denmark, funded by a textile/clothing billionaire. I think it was eventually paused or cancelled when his children tragically were killed in a terrorist attack in Sri Lanka. One of the weirder story lines in this universe.
posted by AwkwardPause at 9:26 AM on January 28
posted by AwkwardPause at 9:26 AM on January 28
Ooops, upthread I said Estes Park, which is NOT the right place in Chapel Hill, I meant Glen Lennox.
posted by Vegiemon at 9:43 AM on January 28
posted by Vegiemon at 9:43 AM on January 28
I’m hearing you folks on moderately dense walkable neighborhoods with good transportation, I just don’t think this thing is that or a road to that or a road to anywhere really. It just exists, as much as it does it will exist, to soak up some money and be useless to anyone.
posted by Artw at 10:04 AM on January 28 [4 favorites]
posted by Artw at 10:04 AM on January 28 [4 favorites]
All skyscrapers eventually become groundscrapers.
Might as well just beat gravity to the punch then and take this design and lay it flat: 600 meters (two city blocks) of 5-over-1. You don't have to go far at all from the Federal building to find decayed urban core for lease. And it's much simpler to deal with earthquake, wind and fire risks this way.
The proposal feels like a real "if you build it, they will come" idea, preying on people who believe that skyscrapers are a cause of and not a response to growth. At a very high level, what fuels city growth is trade routes. NYC has the Hudson, making it the natural place lading river barges containing farm produce into ocean going vessels with destinations across the Atlantic. Portland OR is where the Columbia and Willamette rivers meet up. Even KC has the Kansas and Missouri river confluence. OKC by contrast has a single river, so no spot is advantaged over another, and that river doesn't seem to be navigable (outside the 4 mile stretch the city dammed and locked for tourism).
Also: the reason OKC is growing despite those headwinds is the energy sector. Devon Energy owns the current tallest building in the state as their corporate headquarters, and whose employees would presumably be a prime consumer for the best suites of this supertall. So all this talk of dense, efficient construction would be in service of more fossil fuel extraction.
posted by pwnguin at 10:36 AM on January 28 [1 favorite]
Might as well just beat gravity to the punch then and take this design and lay it flat: 600 meters (two city blocks) of 5-over-1. You don't have to go far at all from the Federal building to find decayed urban core for lease. And it's much simpler to deal with earthquake, wind and fire risks this way.
The proposal feels like a real "if you build it, they will come" idea, preying on people who believe that skyscrapers are a cause of and not a response to growth. At a very high level, what fuels city growth is trade routes. NYC has the Hudson, making it the natural place lading river barges containing farm produce into ocean going vessels with destinations across the Atlantic. Portland OR is where the Columbia and Willamette rivers meet up. Even KC has the Kansas and Missouri river confluence. OKC by contrast has a single river, so no spot is advantaged over another, and that river doesn't seem to be navigable (outside the 4 mile stretch the city dammed and locked for tourism).
Also: the reason OKC is growing despite those headwinds is the energy sector. Devon Energy owns the current tallest building in the state as their corporate headquarters, and whose employees would presumably be a prime consumer for the best suites of this supertall. So all this talk of dense, efficient construction would be in service of more fossil fuel extraction.
posted by pwnguin at 10:36 AM on January 28 [1 favorite]
It just exists, as much as it does it will exist, to soak up some money and be useless to anyone.
Honestly, I have strong doubts this will ever exist.
posted by pwnguin at 10:48 AM on January 28 [1 favorite]
Honestly, I have strong doubts this will ever exist.
posted by pwnguin at 10:48 AM on January 28 [1 favorite]
Here's a list of "visionary" structures. The next tallest building in the world will be Jeddah Tower at 1km, and after that there might be Rise Tower, at 2km.
posted by Brian B. at 11:57 AM on January 28 [1 favorite]
posted by Brian B. at 11:57 AM on January 28 [1 favorite]
All I know about Oklahoma City I learned from this fascinating book, "Boom Town: The Fantastical Saga of Oklahoma City, Its Chaotic Founding, Its Apocalyptic Weather, Its Purloined Basketball Team, and the Dream of Becoming a World-class Metropolis" by Sam Anderson. (A book rec I picked up on mefi!)
And this skyscraper project TOTALLY tracks.
posted by of strange foe at 1:48 PM on January 28
And this skyscraper project TOTALLY tracks.
posted by of strange foe at 1:48 PM on January 28
Truly, one would think it would be Tulsa that would have the major development given that Tulsa is a port city that links to the Atlantic Ocean.
posted by hippybear at 2:03 PM on January 28
posted by hippybear at 2:03 PM on January 28
is the post-war US planned communities with small one-story apartments grouped in clusters with lots of public green space away from the road.
That's a terrible design - there is more 'road' in that than there is 'home'. Also 'green space' is nonsense - either build a park, with a place for kids to kick a ball, or build urban homes. Only city planners and the crews hired to mow them care about that tiny little strip of 'green space' between the homes and parking lots.
posted by The_Vegetables at 12:25 PM on January 29
That's a terrible design - there is more 'road' in that than there is 'home'. Also 'green space' is nonsense - either build a park, with a place for kids to kick a ball, or build urban homes. Only city planners and the crews hired to mow them care about that tiny little strip of 'green space' between the homes and parking lots.
posted by The_Vegetables at 12:25 PM on January 29
As someone who lives in Oklahoma City - we absolutely do not need this. We already have plenty of apartments downtown of questionable affordability and no strong, stable industry.
posted by The Bishop of Turkey at 8:10 PM on January 29 [2 favorites]
posted by The Bishop of Turkey at 8:10 PM on January 29 [2 favorites]
Us normies think of them as places to live, but really should think of them as financial instruments. All those needle thin uninhabitable towers in NY aren’t constructed to be occupied.
Like modern Rai Stones except not as durable.
posted by Mitheral at 6:46 PM on January 30
Like modern Rai Stones except not as durable.
posted by Mitheral at 6:46 PM on January 30
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posted by MonsieurPEB at 10:21 AM on January 27 [18 favorites]