Last September, the Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce won approval under that city’s downtown design guidelines for a new headquarters building at 4th and Gaylord, where Gaylord jogs left to connect to Broadway. Approval was controversial, because of …

Thanks for at least revisiting this unfortunate episode of downtown OKC development. You’ve outlined very well why the chamber is so important to the city, which is why it’s so disappointing that it should go forward with a design its leaders know isn’t the best.

The chamber understandably wants to meet prospective businesses in rooms that wonderfully face the skyline, but surely there must be a design that affords those views while still having a presence that fits its surroundings and maintains a sense of great public space.

There is another flaw. I believe the plan was to house the Convention and Visitors Bureau there, and for this purpose, the site is not ideal. You should always place CVB offices in the thick of visitor (pedestrian) traffic; its present site is fine, and somewhere on Park Avenue would have been better. But on 4th and Gaylord, nobody walks there, except during events taking place on Auto Alley. People can stay at the Skirvin and not know that site exists.

As for the argument against reconfiguring the streets; this is something we are going to have to talk more about. I am still not sure who suggested dead-ending Gaylord into 4th street. I was part of the team that proposed placing a public square – along with the Chamber Building – at that corner, but our proposal did not include dead-ending Gaylord into 4th street. We had envisioned other solutions which I will share with everyone soon.

Shane – I know what you mean, but it would be unfortunate if anyone – no matter their take on the issue – would move forward with the design if they knew it to be flawed in some way. We know planning staff feels the design is flawed. We know that at least one well respected architect/urban designer who spoke out – and believe me there are many more who kept similar opinions to themselves – feels the design is flawed. And I have to think that even the people that were pushing for its approval have doubts as to whether or not it is the best we can do. Hopefully everyone will be willing to expend the extra time and effort necessary to do something we can be proud of. Otherwise, we will have to live with this mistake for another 30 years!

To address the issue at hand, the argument against reconfiguring the streets that EK Gaylord/Broadway is the primary north-south artery in downtown, and thus couldn’t be severed by having Gaylord run into 4th and dead end. What if Gaylord kept the same path but went underground for a couple blocks, thereby allowing for a park space above it?

The easist fix though is to put structured parking and mixed use structures in the place of the surface lots.