Oklahoma has never been very well known for being a tourist attracting state (that is unless you’re a storm chaser), and for a good period of time now, our city officials have wanted to change that. We have the Devon Tower in Bricktown and the Chesapeake arena in the same area, but neither are regarded as being remarkably tall compared to other buildings or skyscrapers. And with that, space has been allotted for Legends Tower.
The original plan for the tower’s height was 1,750 feet which would make it the second tallest in the U.S. second to the world trade center in New York City. After changing plans for The Boardwalk, Legends tower is planned to be built with a height of 1,907 feet Making the building 134 stories high! The tower would be the 6th tallest building in the entire world. Taking the Devon Tower into account for the height of the new building, Legends Tower would be five times taller than the Devon Tower.
The company responsible for the planning of Legends Tower is Matteson Capital. The CEO Scot Matteson has made a statement on why the construction of the tower would be a good way to capitalize on the growth of OKC. “We believe that this development will be an iconic destination for the city, further driving the expansion and diversification of the growing economy, drawing in investment, new businesses, and jobs. It’s a dynamic environment and we hope to see The Boardwalk at Bricktown stand as the pride of Oklahoma City,” Matteson said.
While the tower’s construction could mean more tourism for the state, many people (including myself) believe that the construction of the tower would be pointless, and a waste of city resources. On the topic of city resources, the full budget of this massive build project would be $1.5 billion dollars! As is right now, the company that owns Devon Tower doesn’t ever fill the whole space, which begs the question of what we would fill the new tower with, and what demographic it would be for?
The use of the building has been planned to be used as a mixed purpose building, being used as a hotel, a residential area, and a retail area which would call for 1,776 apartment spaces, 110,000 square feet of retail stores (including restaurants), the top floor would serve as observation area for the rest of the city and the whole building would take up around three acres of space on ground level.
At this point in time it is also not completely confirmed if the tower will be constructed or not considering zoning and Oklahoma’s reputation for erratic weather which as always, includes many many tornadoes. Mayor David Holt has also had his own criticisms on the project, so since we don’t know if and or when it’s gonna be built, we’ll find out when we find out.
