Impetus for the plan: 1950s and 1960s
Similar to most urban areas in the post-World War II era, Oklahoma City experienced urban sprawl into outlying municipal and suburban areas in the 1940s and 1950s. At the same time, increased automobile traffic exhausted the limited parking availability in the Oklahoma City downtown area, a phenomenon which was exacerbated by the dismantling of the Oklahoma City Railway after World War II. Lackmeyer and Money, p. 6. In addition, real estate lots downtown — a holdover from the days of the Land Run of 1889 that settled the area — were too small to accommodate expanding business sizes. By 1962, 53 downtown retailers had closed or moved to the suburbs. During the 1950s and early 1960s local Oklahoma City business leaders, including Dean A. McGee, Chamber of Commerce president Stanley Draper, and publisherOriginal plan
I.M. Pei developed his plan for the Central Business District through 1964, initially disclosing it only to Urban Renewal Authority principals and principals of the related but privately financed Urban Action Foundation. Pei's plan called for the demolition of hundreds of buildings to form "superblocks" that could house large-scale development. Included in the plan were new parking garages (increasing available spaces from the then-available 14,300 to 28,360), a new street grid converting Robinson, Reno, and Sheridan (formerly Grand) Avenue into one-way streets, a new convention center, planned spaces for adjoining hotel development, a major retail center, new residential and office towers, aPlan implementation: 1965–1980
Implementation of the Pei Plan required a series of land acquisitions while replacement facilities and buildings were being built, and eventually grew to differ from Pei's original concept as landowners willingly sold properties to the Urban Renewal Authority, while other landowners targeted in the plan vigorously defended against eminent domain actions. Lackmeyer and Money, p. 32. Pei's original plan had called for the retention of, among other notable Oklahoma City landmarks, the Biltmore and Huckins Hotels. The original plan also envisioned replacement facilities for downtown's John A. Brown Department Store, and the replacement of buildings along Main Street with an interior shopping arcade. Pei's plan had not finalized a site for the proposed convention center, which after negotiations between competing areas of the city was eventually located in an area of southeast downtown generally regarded as "skid row," with funding ensured by a July 1968 special election. Large-scale demolition began in 1967, funded with federal redevelopment grants provided under the Johnson administration. By the early 1970s the redevelopment authority had constructed the new convention center, expanded and rerouted Broadway Avenue (now renamed E.K. Gaylord Avenue) in Oklahoma City as a six-lane commuter thoroughfare featuring the vast Santa Fe Parking Garage, and provided sites for new headquarters of the Kerr-McGee Corporation (now home to SandRidge Energy), Liberty Bank (now the Chase Tower), and Fidelity Bank (now the Park Harvey Center). A pedestrian tunnel project originally designed to connect with the proposed Main Street shopping arcade was also constructed. Under the Nixon administration, however, generous support of urban renewal effort began to dwindle. Hotel and retail developments originally envisioned as part of the Pei Plan began to disintegrate as retailers opted for shopping mall developments rather than downtown locations (the principal shopping malls in Oklahoma City included Penn Square Mall, Shepherd Mall, Crossroads Mall, and later, Quail Springs Mall). In particular, department store company John A. Brown (which originally featured Oklahoma City-based ownership, but subsequently merged with the Dayton Hudson Corporation in 1971) announced plans to abandon its downtown location on January 30, 1974. The proposed site for the Main Street arcade — which was to have connected to both the underground pedestrian tunnel and the Myriad Gardens — already largely demolished, was minimally redeveloped into a surface-level parking garage owned by public authorities. With a dearth of retail opportunities downtown, residential developments envisioned in the Pei Plan failed to develop. Later phases of reconstruction centered on public works projects rather than private redevelopment. In 1977 the last major demolition was accomplished to make way for the Myriad Botanical Gardens west of the convention center. That year also saw the construction of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building — later the target of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing by Timothy McVeigh. By 1980, little if any redevelopment activity remained.Public reaction
Public reaction to the Pei Plan became more negative over time as the redevelopment plans failed to create viable retail or residential options, and community activists bemoaned the loss of historical buildings. A preservationist group in Oklahoma City named the "Criterion Group" was named after the Criterion Theater — one of the most significant historical casualties of the Pei Plan — a French-style stage theater torn down in 1973 to make way for the Century Center (an enclosed shopping center which was largely vacant until 2015 when The Oklahoman opened offices in the space). Other casualties included the Baum Building (a Venetian-inspired structure that George Shirk attempted to save), the Hales Building (the owners of which fought condemnation efforts for nearly a decade), and the Biltmore Hotel, razed in 1977 to make way for the Myriad Botanical Gardens project. The delayed but negative reaction to the Pei Plan frustrated efforts by Oklahoma City authorities to instigate other urban renewal plans until the 1993 passage of the Metropolitan Area Projects (MAPS) initiative.Archive
The Oklahoma City/County Historical Society retains a large-scale conceptual architecture model of the early Pei Plan, housed in the northeast corner of the Cox Convention Center with future plans to house the model at the downtown location of theNotes
External links
Bibliography
* {{Coord, 35, 28, 08, N, 97, 31, 14, W, format=dms, display=title, type:city_region:US-OK Urban planning in the United States History of Oklahoma City City plans