[I]t strikes me as a bad idea aesthetically to remove the [Kermac] building simply to increase the visibility of the new SandRidge plaza.

Well, would you look at that. The Downtown Design Review Committee sees things much the same way I do [pdf]:

The loss of buildings that may have economic viability in exchange for open space would erode the urban density of the downtown moving it close to a suburban character. While open space has value in a downtown environment, the extent of the proposed plazas, decks, and landscaping again reflects a more suburban scale and does not appear to be based on any studies indicating the need for such.

Downtowns are defined by the presence of high-rise buildings. To eliminate five structures that represent true urban character and that define what constitutes a “downtown” — buildings, massing, and definition of the street edge is counter-productive to the intent and purpose of downtown development and other recent proposed redevelopment efforts in the downtown core. Replacement of just one building [albeit an attractive one] does not adequately mitigate this substantial loss of urban fabric.

The staff recommends denial of all but one of the proposed demolitions.

Which doesn’t kill the plan outright, but does create at least the possibility of sending it back to the drawing board.

If they really want a wide-open plaza, let them put it up somewhere in Core to Shore.

© 2010 by Charles G. Hill. All rights reserved. See legal notice at dustbury.com/legalese.

Criteria: psychiatrists per capita (we ranked 29th), stress (25th), eccentricity (20th), and drinking (55th). Even Salt Lake City outdrinks us. Nashville imbibes the least, which explains absolutely nothing about country music; Milwaukee, Austin and Las Vegas tied for heaviest drinking, which presumably doesn’t need explanation at all, though contrary to popular belief, not everyone in Wisconsin is a lush.

Memphis sports the highest stress level, says the Beast; San Francisco the largest number of shrinks; New Orleans (duh) the highest level of eccentricity.

(Title courtesy of George G. Papoon.)

© 2010 by Charles G. Hill. All rights reserved. See legal notice at dustbury.com/legalese.

• KKNG, Tyler’s country outlet at 93.3, has displaced KOJK, which was running Jack FM at 97.3.
• There’s still something vaguely country going on at 93.3, but it’s clearly a case of stunting, and they’re redirecting people to 97.3.

This would suggest that something other than country will be going in, but so far there are no clues.

I can’t say I’m exactly surprised that Tyler bade farewell to Jack: they’ve never climbed much over a 1 share. The only thing I found in the FCC Daily Digest was a decision to allow KWTV to abandon channel 9 in the name of better local reception: their signal will appear only on channel 39 once the tech stuff is done.

© 2010 by Charles G. Hill. All rights reserved. See legal notice at dustbury.com/legalese.

I don’t want to second-guess their commitment to the community, as it turns out SandRidge’s founder, Mitchell Malone, is an OSU alum who recently donated $29 million to OSU. So there’s no doubting their commitment to Oklahoma, and that’s great. But SandRidge, formerly known as Riata Energy, is not from OKC — it relocated here from Amarillo. They are likely familiar with the Kerr-McGee story as anyone in the energy industry probably is, but preserving that history is undoubtedly not a priority for them like it should be for people who are from OKC.

Furthermore, who’s to say SandRidge isn’t out-right trying to root out the KMG legacy around their headquarters and replace it with SandRidge footprints? I can even see a reasonable debate for and against that, because it’s certainly understandable that SandRidge DID thankfully purchase and occupy the tower when KMG left us high and dry. However on the other side, the argument that KMG history is NOT Luke Corbett history has to win at the end of the day. KMG history is OKC history, and it’s about the history of the thousands of people that worked for it, people from hard working oil drillers, to people like Karen Silkwood. It’s the history of Oklahoma, in a microcosm. SandRidge needs to be respectful of that, and there is no reason for them to mow down the original headquarters of Kerr-McGee and replace it with nothing more than a windswept plaza to inflict SandRidge’s corporate image on Robinson Avenue.

Luke Corbett was the last CEO of KMG; the sellout to Anadarko Petroleum happened on his watch, and he reportedly pocketed $200 million from that 2006 deal.

I am not entirely unbiased in this matter: my father worked for KMG for many years, as did my stepmother. But those considerations aside, it strikes me as a bad idea aesthetically to remove the building simply to increase the visibility of the new SandRidge plaza. Steve Lackmeyer noted a few weeks ago:

[T]he building can be salvaged, and there are good prospects for adaptive re-use. Further, SandRidge Energy plans to create an open plaza where there is now a strong urban streetfront. The entrance would create a gap — the sort of thing that pedestrian consultant Jeff Speck described as a sap on walkability and urban life.

I concede, the project plans look pretty good. Then again, we had pretty good plans back in the 1960s, and we wound up with a mausoleum for a downtown, a situation we’ve only just begun to correct.

© 2010 by Charles G. Hill. All rights reserved. See legal notice at dustbury.com/legalese.

And actually, I was wavering a bit until the Gazette put out its head-to-head on the two candidates last week. (You’ll note that no endorsement was offered here.) Maybe some day I’ll tell you why.

Addendum: It actually came out fairly close: Cornett 58 percent, Hunt 42.

© 2010 by Charles G. Hill. All rights reserved. See legal notice at dustbury.com/legalese.

At the supermarket, not only did I flub an item selection — Hunt’s really needs larger type on their tomato-sauce labels — but for the first time in over a year, I wound up writing a check instead of swiping the usual plastic. This sent up a storm flag at the store, especially when I gave off a dafter-than-usual expression when they handed the check back to me. Electronic processing, they’ve already got their money, they don’t need this, they explained. This modern world, I thought, and reminded myself to carry the damned debit card next time.

I was parked next to a newish Nissan Murano, and inasmuch as it was empty and it was after all a Nissan, I glanced into the interior, which was a bit fussy but still sort of neat. As I loaded up the trunk, the Murano started backing up, and lip readers in the vicinity of my face were treated to a very obvious WTF. Either I’m even less observant than I think, which is going some, or the Invisible Woman decided it might be a good idea to rematerialize before she pulled out of the lot.

South of 36th and May is an array of buy-here-pay-here used-car lots, and one of them was offering something different: a layaway plan. This seems contrary to the usual industry practice — get it now and pay a ton of money at high interest rates for as long as possible — but I suppose this could work if you’re not in a hurry. (Or maybe it’s in layaway for just long enough for you to come up with a down payment. You can’t ever tell about these things.)

And it is a measure of the way this winter has gone that this afternoon, with a high temperature still slightly below seasonal norms, seemed abnormally warm.

© 2010 by Charles G. Hill. All rights reserved. See legal notice at dustbury.com/legalese.

The story:

It appears that KOCD may be landing a translator in the OKC metro area in the near future. See the link to the consignment of license application … as posted by a [Radio-Info.com] forum member.

If this is truly a translator for KOCD, this news makes my week! 100.9 is one of the few frequencies left in OKC, so perhaps they can keep the full 250 watts that the translator is currently using in Enid.

I have yet to see any FCC paperwork on moving the actual translator facility, but people are talking like it’s a done deal, and by “people” I mean Ron Black:

Beginning March 1, KOCD 103.7 FM in Tulsa and 100.9 FM in Oklahoma City will be carrying the Larry Stein Show from 6am to 8am Monday through Fridays.

KOCD, despite a generally-terrible signal out here, has consistently pulled in a 0.5-0.6 share of the Oklahoma City market. (They get about a 1 in Tulsa.)

© 2010 by Charles G. Hill. All rights reserved. See legal notice at dustbury.com/legalese.

General Growth is worth more than that, bankruptcy notwithstanding, says their biggest shareholder:

William Ackman’s Pershing Square Capital Management LP, General Growth’s largest shareholder, said in December the stock is worth $24 to $43.

Of late, it’s selling for $13 or so, which suggests the possibility of a bidding war. And everything isn’t necessarily going to come up roses for Simon:

Simon and General Growth have overlapping portfolios in areas including Chicago, Dallas, Houston and the New York-Northern New Jersey region, which may lead to “oversaturation” in some areas.

Include Oklahoma City on that list. Simon owns Penn Square Mall, the city’s largest by sales; General Growth owns Quail Springs Mall, the second-largest. (Quail Springs is actually about 70,000 square feet bigger, but both malls exceed 1 million square feet.)

Now for some guesswork. At the moment, Penn Square has a waiting list: tenants want in, and there’s no room. There seems to be no such issue at Quail Springs. If Simon took over Quail Springs, would it be upgraded to Penn Square standards (and, presumably, rents)? Would the stores that are patiently waiting for Penn Square space accept spots in an improved Quail Springs? Or would Simon, deciding that one regional mall is quite enough, thank you very much, starve Quail to death?

For the moment, though, General Growth has given Simon the cold shoulder, prompting Simon to threaten to withdraw its bid if GGP doesn’t respond.

© 2010 by Charles G. Hill. All rights reserved. See legal notice at dustbury.com/legalese.

[T]here is one question I have about this group … resurrecting minor league hockey in this town. They were previously called Express Sports which made sense considering that it was a branch of the Bob Funk empire (built around Express Personnel). Now, the group goes through a name change which was obviously meant as an allusion to the Biblical story of the prodigal son because, as anybody who knows House of Pain lyrics would recall, the son returned.

The thing is, the son was not called prodigal because of his yo-yo quality. In fact, here is the primary definition of prodigal from the dictionary:

1: characterized by profuse or wasteful expenditure : lavish

See that’s the part of the story that gets left out. The returning son took his inheritance early and basically blew it on wine and whores. He went back to his father’s home after going flat broke in hopes he would no longer have to live on the street.

Technically, I think that Prodigal may still be an adequate name. Express Sports was accused of bankrupting the Blazers by getting visions of grandeur that they needed to be playing in the larger Ford Center rather than the cozy, and cheaper rent, Cox.

The NeoBlazers/Oil Kings/Puckheads/Whatever presumably won’t have these issues: they’re playing in the Cox (which is being updated to, they say, “NHL-caliber ice”), and Funkmaster Bob is being kept on a leash by the parent club in beautiful downtown Edmonton.

© 2010 by Charles G. Hill. All rights reserved. See legal notice at dustbury.com/legalese.

Now I’m not so sure. As is often the case with malls, while smaller stores paid rent to mall management, the anchor stores owned their sections outright. And one of the departed anchors has managed to find a buyer: Macy’s last month spun off its share of the property to something called Crossroads/150 LLC, for a tidy $1.5 million.

This particular something, reports OKCBiz, is managed by Richard Tanenbaum, who says he plans to retain it as an investment property. And I can’t really argue with him on this:

“It’s not the time to be buying anything,” Tanenbaum said with a laugh, “but, my goodness gracious, at 10 bucks a foot … It’s just one of those deals that you just can’t pass up.”

So: one down, three to go. Crossroads Maiden Lane LLC, the Fed’s entity, owns two of the anchor slots — JCPenney and Montgomery Ward (later Steve & Barry’s) — while Dillard’s retains their location.

I still can’t imagine what might happen to this place that would make it profitable, but I still am loath to bet against Richard Tanenbaum.

© 2010 by Charles G. Hill. All rights reserved. See legal notice at dustbury.com/legalese.

The beauty of gardens is that they mature. This is a lecture about horticultural preservation, stewardship, and how gardeners grapple with change. We address the challenges of bringing landscapes into the next generation. Whether you have inherited a landscape or crated a garden over decades and now face mature trees and shrubs that require preemptive pruning or relocation, we explore the issues great and small. We tackle such sticky wickets as rehabilitating overgrown boxwood hedges and coping with plants that were once considered exotics but have now been unmasked as invasives. This is lecture about bringing yesterday’s gardens into tomorrow and the issues that we all face in this process. But we also talk about plant preservation and heirloom varieties, honoring the people who have worked to preserve vintage ornamentals so those plants with a past can become the superstars of future gardens.

“Trowels & Tomorrow: Garden Stewardship” is Sunday, February 14, at the Educational Center at the OKC Zoo. Starting time is 2 pm.

© 2010 by Charles G. Hill. All rights reserved. See legal notice at dustbury.com/legalese.

Florida’s simplified thesis is that successful cities are about talent, technology, and tolerance. The last point is usually taken to mean a tolerance for gays and various “bohemian” types. But tolerance isn’t about non-discrimination ordinances and it isn’t about gays. Tolerance is a mindset.

The dictionary definition of tolerance is “sympathy or indulgence for beliefs or practices differing from or conflicting with one’s own”. From this is clear that most advocates for “progressive” policies of the type advocated by Florida really aren’t tolerating anything. They might be about allowing differences, but it is seldom about allowing views or actions that are in actual conflict with their own values. Indeed, progressives can be as intolerant as anyone for beliefs or actions that differ from their orthodoxy.

We need tolerance properly so-called. We need an environment where we are willing to put up with things we don’t like in return for the same freedom for ourselves. We need cities where “live and let live” is the motto. Rules that stifle this in order to produce a perpetual suburban style family friendly or least common denominator view of what a city should be are ultimately counter-productive. They sap the city of its animating power.

This explains, among other things, why the contemporary/wacky/WTF (choose one) architecture going up west of MidTown is so important: they stand athwart the “A neighborhood should look like this” concept and shout, “Oh, yeah?” Anyone can build a startlingly-modern house way the hell out at 199th and Whatever, but putting it right smack dab in the middle of town is a serious statement.

Given the tendency to overplan occasionally exhibited in this town — nobody has any idea what Core to Shore will eventually look like, but every office in City Hall has some sort of model — I’m definitely up for some seemingly-wretched excess. Oh, and a few non-discrimination ordinances might be nice.

© 2010 by Charles G. Hill. All rights reserved. See legal notice at dustbury.com/legalese.

Speaking of locations on May, my non-automatic car wash of choice, the old National Pride wash in the Village, has apparently swallowed its pride and closed its doors, except of course that it doesn’t have any doors. I have tentatively settled on the Xtreme (!) Wash at 38th and Meridian as its replacement; it exceeds the usual cleanliness standard, the mechanicals are friendly — no coin changer, you just shove in bills as needed — and they have one of these on the premises, which suggests they might actually pay attention to water quality.

Snark of the day: at the meat counter, from a woman who was finicky about filet mignon. She found one she liked, and then pointed to a tray about two feet away for her second. Said the butcher, “Good stuff, but that’s the prime. It’s five dollars more per pound.”

“Oh, he’s not worth five dollars,” she said.

Yeah, we all laughed; comic timing, I decided, outweighed the appearance of misandry. And having bought nothing over four dollars a pound from their display case, I figured I probably wasn’t worth it either.

Later, sighted across a parking lot, this was chalked (shoe-polished, more likely, but you get the idea) on the windows of a van: “RIP,” a girl’s name, “We Love You,” and her dates.

Three months and three days apart.

The skies, already darkening, seemed to be so much more so all of a sudden.

I had gotten about three miles away when The Spy unexpectedly served up Kirsty MacColl’s unjustly-forgotten “Walking Down Madison.”

“From the sharks in the penthouse
To the rats in the basement
It’s not that far…”

This marked the transition from “somewhat weepy” to “totally lost it.”

© 2010 by Charles G. Hill. All rights reserved. See legal notice at dustbury.com/legalese.

That’s what it says, anyway. Here’s the list of eateries; rather a lot of the Big Names are participating on one day, though none of them on all three.

Of course, if you prefer alternate channels for donations, by all means use them.

© 2010 by Charles G. Hill. All rights reserved. See legal notice at dustbury.com/legalese.

The issue: electronic signage, and a proposed city ordinance to regulate their size and placement. The new rules would provide for three “levels” of signs:

· Level 1 allows static messages to be displayed for at least eight seconds. It would be the only type of [electronic message display] permitted in residential areas, except for along major arterial roads.

· Level 2 allows text and graphics that appear to move or change in size. Messages may scroll across the sign.

· Level 3 allows animated graphics and full-motion video with no restrictions of message length.

There are also size limitations: level 1, for instance, is limited to 100 square feet. The Alliance wants this cut to 75 square feet, and a ban in areas where design review is required; also, they want neighborhoods to be informed if any such sign is going to be constructed within 300 feet of its official boundaries.

Ward 4 Councilman Pete White explains the reason for the new rule:

“The idea is to bring the ordinance into the 21st century and get an ordinance that anybody could read and see if they’re able to get a particular sign,” White said. “We’re trying to get rid of this administrative quagmire that was created.”

I’m not quite sure what I think of this. There’s a full-fledged Level 3 sign at billboard level along I-44’s north loop, and it doesn’t bother me at all; I suspect I’d be more annoyed, though, were it closer to eye level, or closer to my house — though that presumably wouldn’t happen, under either the previous ordinance or the new one.

And hardly any of the EMD signs I’ve seen have even a sliver of the gritty urban character of good old-fashioned neon, which makes me wonder just how much Tyranny of the New factor is involved here.

© 2010 by Charles G. Hill. All rights reserved. See legal notice at dustbury.com/legalese.

At least some of the Knicks, however, believe it was the result of Oklahoma City’s dearly departed:

For two days, several players had trouble sleeping because they were convinced that their downtown hotel is haunted.

“I definitely believe it,” Jared Jeffries said. “The place is haunted. It’s scary.”

Eddy Curry claims he slept for only two hours Sunday night because he couldn’t stop thinking about ghosts roaming the hotel.

Jeffries scored eight points, about twice his average so far this season. Curry did not play (coach’s decision).

For years, guests staying at the Skirvin Hilton have reported ghost sightings and strange noises. Legend has it that sometime in the 1930s, a woman jumped to her death while holding her baby in her hands.

“They said it happened on the 10th floor and I’m the only one staying on the 10th floor,” Curry said. “That’s why I spent most of my time in (Nate Robinson’s) room. I definitely believe there are ghosts in that hotel.”

Robinson had 19 points, about half again his average so far this season.

Next game with the Knicks is at Madison Square Garden; they won’t be back here until next season. Wonder where they’ll stay?

(Tweeted by FanFeedr.)

© 2010 by Charles G. Hill. All rights reserved. See legal notice at dustbury.com/legalese.

This is in compliance with 51 O.S. 24A.8. Incidentally, the date of birth is included for each person named in the blotter, although, as Dr Joey Senat notes:

Oklahoma City and Oklahoma County officials have recently refused to disclose the birth dates of their government employees, claiming it would be an unwarranted invasion of privacy.

So long as those employees stay out of jail, I guess.

© 2010 by Charles G. Hill. All rights reserved. See legal notice at dustbury.com/legalese.

For some reason, we seem to have forgotten how to do this sort of thing with any alacrity:

It looks like the time to build a big skyscraper in America is doubling every 35 years.

Another 70 years will be two more cycles of doubling, at which point the time to construct a skyscraper will — at the time construction starts — be 40 years … and will double ever 35 years.

A Bizarro version of Moore’s Law, to be sure. Are they building them from the top down or something?

Admittedly, it’s been more than 70 years since Oklahoma City’s Great Skyscraper Race, but I suspect we can come up with some speed if we have to: the 900-foot Devon Tower was started two months ago and is supposed to be finished in a mere 38 months.

(Spotted by Tam.)

© 2009 by Charles G. Hill. All rights reserved. See legal notice at dustbury.com/legalese.

Typically, the heaviest snow is in a narrow band, and it drops off quickly a few miles either side of it; I’m estimating about 10 inches here at Surlywood, which is about ten miles from the airport unless you actually have to drive there.

For those people who were dreaming of a white Christmas: okay, you got it. It’ll probably be twenty years until you get another one, so try to enjoy it.

© 2009 by Charles G. Hill. All rights reserved. See legal notice at dustbury.com/legalese.

Renzi Stone suggests that the proponents, having discovered that the opposition wasn’t going to go away quietly, doubled down:

[T]he union (perhaps inadvertently) woke up a business and Chamber community that may have taken MAPS passage for granted. The organized opposition actually united the “yes” coalition.

On the other hand, it wasn’t that organized, says Dan Lovejoy:

The opposition was undisciplined in its message, negative toward the city, and pessimistic overall. Its visual appeals were very poor. The “Not This Maps” signs were almost illegible — black signs with red and white text. Who wants to be affiliated with this dark imagery, with this negativity toward your own city?

I heard one radio ad in which the announcer had the thickest southeastern Oklahoma accent one could possibly imagine — it was really more of a parody than a real dialect. It didn’t speak to aspiration, and it certainly didn’t speak to urban voters. I don’t know who they thought their audience was, but they missed. Overall, the NO alliance depended on negativity — they didn’t offer any meaningful alternative.

Me, I like southeastern-Oklahoma accents, but I suppose they don’t play well on (semi)-big-city radio.

In the case where something truly horrid is about to be undertaken, not offering a meaningful alternative can be considered a Good Thing: if the Republicrats propose to poison the wells with arsenic, the Demopublicans need not respond with a counteroffer to use formaldehyde instead. (Extrapolate this to Real Life however you wish.) But the opposition wasn’t in any position to make the argument that MAPS 3 was truly horrid, only that it might be ill-timed in light of the less-than-robust economy, especially since they insisted that the vast sums involved be spent, not on these pet projects, but on their own pet projects.

And as it turned out, the weather didn’t seem to stop anyone anyway. You want to see weather-impacted voting, you go back to this week in 2007 when the city was seeking approval of new bond issues in the midst of a major ice storm. Five percent of the electorate, maybe.

© 2009 by Charles G. Hill. All rights reserved. See legal notice at dustbury.com/legalese.

Unofficial total, with all 271 precincts reporting: Yes 40,956 (54.3%); No: 34,465 (45.7%).

To quote Nick Roberts (who wrote this before the vote):

The entire city will enjoy the system of hiking and bicycle trails. Each section of the city that gets a senior city will benefit from that. Businesses on the west side of town will benefit from more expo shows at the Fairgrounds and the entire city will benefit from more sales tax from the expo center and the convention center. The south side, particularly Capitol Hill, will benefit from the stadium seats to be placed on the south side of the river. The whole center city will benefit from 5-6 miles of streetcar track. This could connect C2S, Bricktown, the Medical District/OHC area, Capitol area, Uptown, Heritage Hills, MidTown, Downtown/Arts District, and back to C2S. And the entire center city, anything between I-44 and I-240, will benefit from a downtown renaissance. Before MAPS, how fashionable was it to live in neighborhoods like Heritage Hills, Mesta Park, Gatewood, Jefferson Park, The Paseo, et all? The answer is not very en vogue. Because of MAPS, the entire city is en vogue. You can’t put a pricetag on that.

It wasn’t going to be a landslide: everyone knew that. The first MAPS package, back in 1993, passed with 53 percent of the vote. But try to find someone today who says he voted against it.

© 2009 by Charles G. Hill. All rights reserved. See legal notice at dustbury.com/legalese.

I won’t even speculate on how the measure fared; I have to figure that both sides had their own get-out-the-vote efforts, and my mailbox will back me up on this.

© 2009 by Charles G. Hill. All rights reserved. See legal notice at dustbury.com/legalese.

Dec. 4 — Panera Bread, 10600 S Pennsylvania.
Dec. 9 — Starbucks, 3616 N May.
Dec. 10 — Krispy Kreme, 1024 SW 74th.
Dec. 17 — Denny’s, 1617 W I-240 Service Road.
Dec. 22 — Krispy Kreme, 1024 SW 74th.
Dec. 29 — Krispy Kreme, 13500 N Pennsylvania.
Dec. 30 — Dunkin’ Donuts, 1600 S Sunnylane.
Dec. 31 — Starbucks, 3616 N May.

Each session starts at 9:30 am and will run for approximately one hour.

© 2009 by Charles G. Hill. All rights reserved. See legal notice at dustbury.com/legalese.

In each of the previous proposals — including last year’s vote to improve the Ford Center and build a practice facility for the Thunder — our city leaders have actually delivered what they said they would deliver. Too many people seem to forget what Oklahoma City was like prior to MAPS.

Downtown certainly wasn’t a place a pretty girl could go plaster shark posters in relative safety.

Nick Roberts has a whole Top Ten, from which I single out Number Three:

Embarrass the Stimulus. The Stimulus does not work because people in Washington, DC do not know what needs OKC or any town has. Even if they knew what projects the people in Pittsburgh and Minneapolis supported, here in OKC we got nothing from the Stimulus. Is there a guarantee the Stimulus will work? No, in fact precedent is way against it. Precedent is however in favor of MAPS. If you want to make a political point against government waste and pet projects, vote for MAPS. Let’s prove a powerful point to Washington: special projects are best left to local leaders NOT distant politicians.

Actually, we got a few bucks here and there, inasmuch as most of the funds seem to be spent on state government, and OKC has been the state capital ever since we didn’t actually steal the state seal. But not much of it is going to be spent on stimulating actual private investment, which is the whole point of MAPS. (Okay, “satisfying some people’s Edifice Complex” is up there somewhere, but it’s not at the top.)

I still have issues with the methodology in place around here, but I remain unpersuaded by the opposition.

© 2009 by Charles G. Hill. All rights reserved. See legal notice at dustbury.com/legalese.