Oklahoma City
Jeff Speck and I first met in 2004. I had just been elected mayor of Oklahoma City, and I was invited to Charleston for an event hosted by the Mayors’ Institute on City Design. Jeff was one of the design professionals lending expertise to mayors facing complex planning issues.
When I took office as mayor of Oklahoma City in 2004, my goals were similar to any other mayor’s: to improve our economy, raise our national profile, and protect our citizens. We had an intersection with safety concerns, and our planning department was pushing the idea to me and the City Council to install a traffic circle. At the time, traffic circles were new to this generation of Oklahoma City drivers, but we soon found out that they were cost-effective and most certainly safer.
Commemorating the 30th anniversary of the tragic bombing in downtown Oklahoma City finds the city itself experiencing nothing short of an amazing urban renaissance, after having pivoted from a suburban focus to a vibrant celebration of its central business district.
Husband and wife architectural team Hans and Torrey Butzer were living in Berlin, Germany, in late 1996 when a contest in Progressive Architecture magazine caught their attention. The competition called for designing a memorial to the victims of the tragic bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995.
A major investment in the long-term future of professional soccer is set to dramatically transform the last major land parcel in downtown Oklahoma City. Thanks to a successful public/private partnership, America’s 20th-largest city is seeing a continued resurgence in its downtown.
Eight months after the devastating 1995 bombing, a 13-member panel delivered a report detailing downtown redevelopment strategies.
ULI has announced the appointment of Mick Cornett, the former mayor of Oklahoma City, as the ULI Canizaro/Klingbeil Fellow for Urban Development. Cornett served as mayor of Oklahoma City from 2005 to 2018, leading a major redevelopment plan for the urban core, securing an NBA franchise to the city, creating an entertainment district that now attracts 2 million visitors a year, and generating 80,000 new jobs.
For much of the 20th century, the banking hall at the First National Center in Oklahoma City served as a showpiece for the downtown financial district.
Devon Energy Center is a corporate headquarters highlighted by a 50-story skyscraper that creates a focal point for the company and for Oklahoma City by integrating civic-scaled spaces as a vital component of its overall development.
