Glides and slides across the floor

Chesapeake Energy's expansion in recent years has been reminiscent of The Blob: eventually it would engulf the entire city, and you'd see people running out of a theater — well, maybe the Will Rogers Center — screaming at the top of their lungs.

The question of "What are they thinking?" has been sort of answered: the company has requested Planned Unit Development zoning for its campus and points to the east, roughly from Western to Shartel, 59th to 63rd. (The city's Web site, on this type of zoning: "The PUD may be used for particular tracts or parcels of land that are under common ownership and are to be developed as one unit according to a master design statement or a master development plan.")

So what's the plan? The complex may eventually contain, says the zoning application, "up to 75 condos, restaurants and a heliport," though nothing is quite graven in stone just yet:

I presume Chesapeake's acquisition of Nichols Hills Plaza, northwest of its campus, isn't mentioned in the application, since the Plaza is within the corporate limits of Nichols Hills and therefore outside Oklahoma City jurisdiction.

And I have to figure that prices for natural gas won't remain in the stratosphere forever, so Chesapeake may be pursuing this diversification just to make sure they remain a major corporate player.