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Oklahoma City Council Narrows Possible Convention Center Sites Down To 2

A view of Broadway Avenue from the Cox Convention Center in downtown Oklahoma City.
Brent Fuchs
/
The Journal Record
A view of Broadway Avenue from the Cox Convention Center in downtown Oklahoma City.

Four months ago, Oklahoma City hit a snag on the long-awaited MAPS 3 convention center in downtown. In March, the city dropped a land bid for the location they wanted just south of the Myriad Gardens.

Oklahoma City budgeted $13 million for land acquisition, and the current owners wanted $100 million, so they had to figure something else out.

Credit Map illustration by Bryan M. Richter / The Journal Record
/
The Journal Record

The city hired the consulting firm Populous to do that, and on Tuesday the group unveiled its site evaluations and made its pitch to the city council.

“They narrowed it down to two, and the council agreed to pursue negotiations on those two sites,” said the Journal Record’s managing editor Adam Brooks. "One is called East Park. It's directly south of the Chesapeake Energy Arena. And the other site is called the Reno/Dewey Hybrid. It kind of combines some other sites. It's at the northwest corner of the planned park, which puts it southwest of the Myriad Gardens.”

The city council vote was 7-1, with the lone dissenting vote coming from Ward Two Councilman Ed Shadid. Brooks said he’s historically been skeptical about the convention center and the hotel plan.

The Journal Record’s Brian Brus examined some of the pros and cons of each of the two sites:

The property in the initial Reno/Dewey area beat out other proposals because it is already on the planned streetcar route and supports other city planning initiatives, the Populous study shows. It is a reasonable distance from the downtown business district, but farther away from the Bricktown entertainment district. Based on feedback, Populous erased the borders on that option and combined parcels with another option slightly to the east referred to as north Core to Shore. The latter has better location scores but higher development costs. The east park option is not on the streetcar route, but it also is a fair distance to the heart of downtown and fits well with other development plans for the area. Demolition and site development costs are slightly higher than the Reno/Dewey hybrid option, but utility removal is projected to be less expensive.

“Whatever option they go with, it probably means negotiations with a lot of different people,” Brooks said. “Populous said it could be up to 21 landowners.”

In addition to those nearly two dozen property owners, the firm also had to take into account the hotel that’s attached to this MAPS 3 project.

Watch video of Tuesday's city council meeting. The MAPS 3 convention center discussion starts at 1:03:29

“The developers had a slight preference to the east site because of its proximity to the arena, the CBD, and Bricktown,” said Populous’ Todd Voth, who leads the firm’s convention center practice. “All of the teams though stated very clearly that they thought the west site was really a difficult situation from them because it was far away from the central business district, the arena, and Bricktown."

When that land deal  fell through in March, downtown observers floated the idea of finding a way to re-purpose the Cox Convention Center, or use that site. Ward One Councilman James Greiner asked Voth that exact same question Tuesday, and Voth essentially said the biggest problem with the Cox center is that it’s currently occupied. But there are also civil engineering and architectural concerns – namely the main, load-bearing wall that separates the arena from the exhibit halls.

Browse Populous' entire study and presentation of the MAPS 3 convention center sites

“They both rely on that wall, so when you take one part down, then you've got to build another wall, or another structure to support that,” Voth said. “So it's very complicated, structurally, and we just felt it was not worth the pain of doing it. You can do it, no question about it, but it'd be very costly and it would harm your business."

Brooks said the Oklahoma City Convention and Visitor’s Bureau would basically have to give up conventions for two or three years in order to use the Cox site. It could be used as overflow, for smaller events, or torn down entirely to redevelop the massive block bound by Robinson, Hudson, Reno, and Sheridan Aves.

“I think it will probably be several years before we know what's going to happen there,” Brooks said.

Read The Journal Record's full coverage of the downtown convention center

The Business Intelligence Report is a collaborative news project between KGOU and The Journal Record.

As a community-supported news organization, KGOU relies on contributions from readers and listeners to fulfill its mission of public service to Oklahoma and beyond. Donate online, or by contacting our Membership department.

The Journal Record is a multi-faceted media company specializing in business, legislative and legal news. Print and online content is available via subscription.

Brian Hardzinski is from Flower Mound, Texas and a graduate of the University of Oklahoma. He began his career at KGOU as a student intern, joining KGOU full time in 2009 as Operations and Public Service Announcement Director. He began regularly hosting Morning Edition in 2014, and became the station's first Digital News Editor in 2015-16. Brian’s work at KGOU has been honored by Public Radio News Directors Incorporated (PRNDI), the Oklahoma Association of Broadcasters, the Oklahoma Associated Press Broadcasters, and local and regional chapters of the Society of Professional Journalists. Brian enjoys competing in triathlons, distance running, playing tennis, and entertaining his rambunctious Boston Terrier, Bucky.
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