Showcasing downtown
Congress of leading urban design thought leaders set to bring 1,600 to OKC
The Congress for New Urbanism, an international organization dedicated to urban placemaking, is set to host its 2021 annual conference in Oklahoma City.
The conference typically draws about 1,600 of its 2,600 members, and the 2021 conference will showcase a downtown Oklahoma City transformation that will include a completed Scissortail Park, Omni Hotel and convention center.
The team that pitched to host the conference that features leading thinkers in urban design, architecture and planning, admit they were “pleasantly shocked” when they were chosen after their first ever bid.
“We saw a lot opportunity for our attendees to learn from the trip,” said Abigail Sheridan, deputy director at CNU. “A tremendous part of our conference is the chance to learn from the region. And the redevelopment happening downtown, the river and in the Wheeler District are all things that our membership will get excited about, what our board got excited about.”
The pitch began earlier this year when Casi Poor, senior project at the Alliance for Economic Development for Oklahoma City, received an invitation to apply for hosting the CNU conference.
She enlisted three other local and active members: Ashley Terry, a board member of the central Oklahoma chapter of the Urban Land Institute and Michelle McBeath, its director; and Shane Hampton, director of the OU Institute for Quality Communities.
“We were thinking we would get 2025,” Terry said. “Casi literally called us and said 'How would you like to spend your weekend putting together this application?' The four of us got together thinking, 'Sweet, for the next few years we'll be on CNU's radar.' ”
The conference is set to occur in May 2021, coinciding with the opening of the 17-story, 605-room Omni, the new convention center and completed conversion of First National into a hotel, housing and
retail. The attendees typically start arriving on Monday and Tuesday with the conference running Wednesday through Saturday.
“We're hoping these are not just projects we can showcase but also where we can get some of the thought leaders from CNU to critique and learn,” Terry said. “They can learn at First National how they are using that space and take that knowledge back to their communities.”
About 50 members of CNU toured downtown and Wheeler along the Oklahoma River while on a ride to this year's conference in Louisville, Kentucky. This week is the first visit for Sheridan, who complimented Poor, Terry, Hampton and McBeath for quickly raising the $180,000 required
to successfully apply to host a conference. The benefits of the conference, Poor said, will last long after the conference as it authors, planners, architects, bankers and other professionals return home and spread awareness of Oklahoma City's ongoing transformation.
Sheridan, meanwhile, noted her board was impressed by the youth of the four, all of whom are in their mid-30s.
“We like to have some competition and diversity of places to consider,” Sheridan said .“This is my first trip to Oklahoma City. And in all honesty, I did not know much about the history of the renewal and revitalization that has taken place, especially in the past 10 years. From the proposal to the presentation, I learned a lot.”