Police Association submits revised garage designs
The Oklahoma City Police Association is submitting a revised design and smaller scope for a proposed garage across from Bicentennial Park while still pursuing an appeal of its original rejected plans that were widely opposed by neighbors.
Neither Ed Hill, president of the association, nor his attorney Kent Gilliland returned calls to The Oklahoman on Monday.
The new designs caught protesters by surprise. The height drops from six to five stories, and from 262 to 207 parking spaces, but retains ground-floor retail and office space. The modern style aluminum fins on the south and north facades are replaced with a decorative metal grille more reminiscent of the Art Deco era and the design of the nearby Civic Center Music Hall and City Hall.
The street-facing walls also are proposed to be clad with brick and cast stone. The east and west walls, however, still are set to be precast concrete panels.
The buildings surrounding the proposed garage at 601 W Main are mostly one-story and two-story structures, and an adjoining building, home to a design shop, is a single story. The proposed site of the garage is a surface parking lot one block west of the Arts District Garage, which is running at 53 percent occupancy.
The Downtown Design Review Committee in September denied the
application and an appeal based on the original plans is still scheduled for the Nov. 2 meeting of the Board of Adjustment. The new application, meanwhile, is set to be presented to the
Downtown Design Review Committee on Nov. 16.
David Box, whose family owns a one-story retail building next to the proposed garage site, said the new plans do not address any of the previous concerns.
“It’s still the same problems,” Box said. “It’s just a shortsighted approach by an applicant who
doesn’t want what the city deserves. Our city deserves better. People who own property along the park should be held to a higher standard. They have plenty of other lots to build a garage.”
Box said the height remains an issue.
During the September hearing, the project’s architect, Scott Dedmon,
told the committee the property was decades ago a four-story brick warehouse similar in scale to the proposed garage.
Protesters, however, were adamant the garage was inappropriate considering the lower height of the surrounding buildings and the proximity to Bicentennial Park. They also noted the design ordinance
does not cite historical use in determining appropriate building height.
“This block has nothing above two stories,” Box said. “Three stories would be fine. But this is five stories. It should be three stories and brick on all sides like everything else on the block.”
Box said his group, which
was already preparing to fight the appeal, is now set to battle the new application as well.
“It’s frustrating,” Box said. “They have this appeal that is still pending. They’re making us spend all this time and money fighting these two different battles. We have a developer who doesn’t seem to know what they want.”