DECK ON THE HIGHWAY
Development over I-235 touted as way to link downtown with Innovation District
When Interstate 235 opened a quarter century ago, it cut into a blighted Harrison-Walnut neighborhood that separated downtown from a fledgling health sciences campus.
The highway opened with block after block of empty lots and boarded-up buildings to the east and west. Today, however, that blight has been replaced with an array of medical and research institutions to the east in the Innovation District and an array of housing, restaurants and shops to the west.
The growth is impressive, especially with the emergence this past year of the Metropolitan apartments on the west fringe and the GE Global Oil & Gas Research Center on the east fringe.
But with highway bridges built for cars and not people, the 17,000 people who work in the Innovation District are rarely seen walking or biking to the restaurants, shops and housing just to the west.
As a longtime Innovation District architect and planner, Bud Miles is unveiling a proposal next month that calls for “capping” I-235 with a park and commercial development. “We look at I-235 as a barrier,” Miles said. “It’s a very well developed north-tosouth corridor, a major interstate that moves through the city. The problem is, it’s a divide. Pedestrian traffic now wants to cross it, and it wasn’t made for that. It was made for vehicular crossing.”
Crossing the bridge
For now, the proposal, “OKC Innovation Link,” is just that — one that is not funded or set in stone. But after sharing the plans with officials at City Hall, the Greater Oklahoma Chamber, leaders of various institutions, the OU Medical Center, GE, developers and area property owners, Miles believes he has enough buy-in to ask how such a plan might become reality.
Roy Williams, president of the Greater Oklahoma City Chamber, is among the plan’s cheerleaders.
“Before I was in Oklahoma City, I was in Phoenix and Columbus, Ohio,” Williams said. “Both of those cities have partially or totally decked highways to create connectivity. In Phoenix, the road goes
under downtown. In Columbus, there was a highway, a barrier and a bridge that really limited connectivity. What they did was they expanded both sides of the bridge wide enough to build retail stores so it became a pathway with storefronts as opposed to walking over a bridge.”
Dallas, meanwhile, capped a section of the Woodall Rodgers Freeway with the 5-acre Klyde Warren Park that opened in 2012. The park connected Dallas’ Uptown with the city’s downtown and arts district.
The park was well received, and the city is considering expanding it to cover more of the highway.
Closer to home, NE 23 immediately north of the state Capitol was capped over with a park years ago.
How to connect
OKC Innovation Link, meanwhile, draws inspiration from both Dallas and Columbus. The NW 10 bridge is seen as a spot to expand the span to add sidewalks and commercial structures. The proposal suggests 350,000 square feet of building footprints could be created along the highway crossings.
“If you bike or walk along 10th or 13th streets where they cross the highway, you’re taking your life into your hands,” Wells said. “You have trees growing out of the sidewalk and the guardrails are too low. It’s dangerous and nasty.”
The sloped hills leading down to I-235, meanwhile, would allow for the construction of parking for up to 1,400 cars that could be topped with more development and park space.
To further connect east and west, a pedestrian bridge is proposed as a way to connect the Metropolitan apartments and the Ninth Street shops and restaurants with the research parks and hospitals to the east.
Cost a question
Miles and Wells say their firm’s plan would improve the city’s appearance, create opportunities for more development of the urban core, and attract more major players like GE.
The question they can’t answer is how much their proposal might cost and how it would be funded.
Dr. Stephen Prescott, president of the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation, believes part of the solution is in the value of the commercial space that could be created along the overpasses. Other options being discussed include use of tax increment financing or a bond issue.
All of those interviewed agree the project likely wouldn’t be funded by the state Transportation Department, which is tasked with building and maintaining highways.
Lack of funding
Mayor Mick Cornett wants to see if there are other ways to connect downtown with the innovation district.
“It’s a good idea, but it’s completely unfunded,” Cornett said. “And there are a lot of ideas that go unfunded. It’s hard to sort through them and create a list of opportunities.”
Cornett notes a study is ongoing by the Project for Public Spaces and the Brookings Institute on how to add more mixed-use to the Innovation District and he wouldn’t want to stop that effort in favor of the OKC Innovation Link.
“This would create a pedestrian-friendly and more connected area, and it does a lot of things right,” Cornett said. “But the Innovation District should be seeking its own identity and its own reputation with planning efforts to get more mixed use into the district. That should take place regardless of whether we cover the interstate.”
Building in stages
Miles acknowledges OKC Innovation Link isn’t the only solution to adding life to the Innovation District or connecting it with downtown. The proposal is written so that it can be built in phases creating opportunities for connections from the Harrison Avenue bridge to the NW 13 bridge.
Prescott, meanwhile, agrees the link might delay interest in commercial and residential development in the core of the Innovation District.
“It’s much easier for developers to find land to the west and not in the core of the Innovation District for development purposes,” Prescott said. “So the need to do development in our core might be more of a struggle if there are options outside.”
But Prescott believes the added density and connections with Bricktown, Deep Deuce and Automobile Alley would eventually extend the life of those districts across a capped highway.
“It’s a really exciting possibility,” Prescott said. “It will achieve what we’re after with connectivity. And if we do it right, it would continue the buzz we have with Bricktown, the Thunder, other parts of the city. It would give the impression around the country there are interesting things going on here.”