An exciting plan for OKC
Plans are in the works for an innovation district in northeast Oklahoma City that offers tremendous upside in the long term. Roy Williams, president of the Greater Oklahoma City Chamber, provides this simple example of its potential benefits:
A symposium not long ago included a presentation about three-dimensional imaging technology used by an energy company to explore oil and gas deposits underground. In attendance was a physician who performs brain surgery on infants.
The physician was already printing 3-D images of brains before operations, but saw the other technology and found he could adapt it to his work and do a better job prepping.
“That's exactly what we want to do here” with the innovation district, Williams said.
The district, to be constructed in two phases, would transform the Oklahoma Health Center area into a hub of high-tech collaboration, innovation and research. According to the firm Perkins & Will, which studied this idea for two years, implementing phase one could result in $1.2
billion annually in additional economic impact and $423 million in additional annual payroll.
The Oklahoman's Steve Lackmeyer reported recently that the area in play would stretch from the Capitol to the Oklahoma Health Center, but the core would be between NE 8, NE 10, N Lincoln Boulevard and Interstate 235.
At its center is Stiles Park. Fields that surround the park would be used for a hotel, expansion of the Baker Hughes/GE campus, retail, offices and a research lab.
“An innovation district, when it is truly functional, is a live-work-learn-play space,” Williams says. “It's where people aggregate, congregate, work, interact, and you provide public spaces where they can connect. …
“You bring energy into the picture, aerospace, look at common issues, common problems, and look at technology in your industry you can use. … It's to spark ideas, spark innovation.
“It's also to provide support services. You want entities in there that can help entrepreneurs with resources. You need developers, housing-commercial-retail …” all of which, he says, are crucial to the city's future.
Will & Perkins estimates the revamped district would create 6,600 permanent jobs, including supporting jobs that won't require a four-year college degree.
Lackmeyer noted the area, home to such things as OU Research Park, numerous hospitals and many biotech companies, has a workforce of about 18,000 but little mixed-use development or ties to the surrounding historically black neighborhoods or downtown. That would change under this plan, which would see improvements to NE 4 Street including redevelopment of the historic Jewel Theatre and conversion of the Foster Center into a business incubator.
Cathy O'Connor, president of The Alliance for Economic Development of Oklahoma City, said it's possible to “create an environment with seamless integration between the neighborhoods and our innovation assets — a place where the people and the spaces fuel each other's success.”
This plan is exciting. Here's to it moving from concept to reality in the next several years.