OKLAHOMA CITY — The developers behind OAK – the 20-acre, billion-dollar mixed-use behemoth coming into focus at NW Expressway and Penn – announced additional plans earlier this month for a $1 million outdoor performance and event stage they say can accommodate more than 1,700 people.
However, some city and community leaders, including some that were involved in the City of Oklahoma City‘s original 2019 approval of the development, say that these plans sound more intensive than they had in mind when the project was originally proposed, and have expressed concerns about noise and neighborhood impact.
“What I seem to recall is there were conversations about the possibility of there being events in the core part of that development,” said Planning Commission Chair Camal Pennington, who served on the commission in 2019. “But I don’t remember specifically approving that use.”
Approved plans
The plans for the OAK development as heard by the City Council and the Planning Commission in 2019 provided for a centralized, 7,000 square-foot open-air “green space” to comprise the heart of the complex.
Development leaders touted it as an area for community events and public art, with OAK’s development leader, Ryan McNeill of Veritas Development telling Free Press in December that “those events will range from things like yoga classes to programs for kids to Kentucky Derby parties or Fourth of July celebrations.”
Pennington said in an interview with Free Press that he remembers the event plans for the common space being presented in that same way.
“I think that what we had in mind was that somebody could be playing music in the park and performing, but people are still walking around shopping,” Pennington said. “But I bet that it depends on the decibel level. The scale is going to be critical to that.”
Sarah Welch in the City of OKC’s Zoning Department confirmed that OAK’s original proposal “contemplated a Central Plaza and allows for the outdoor use,” but she could not confirm that the plans made any clear indication of the size or attendance of planned events for the area.
“They would still need to comply with the city’s noise ordinance,” she said.
New partnership
That originally proposed and approved scale may be growing with the recently announced partnership between OAK and well-known event promoters Brian Bogert and Graham Colton, who are reportedly consulting on the outdoor stage design and use.
Bogert and Colton have plenty of experience in professional-scale concert and event promotion in OKC as operating partners in The Jones Assembly and even bringing Kings of Leon to Scissortail Park’s opening in 2019.
McNeill maintains that turning Heartwood Park – the official name given to OAK’s central plaza – into an entertainment space was always in the developers’ intentions, but says that plans for a “concert-quality” stage came as they continued designing the space.
“We always envisioned Heartwood Park to become an entertainment space for Oklahoma City,” McNeill told Free Press in email this week. “As we designed OAK’s community programming and entertainment platform, we knew a concert-quality stage would fit seamlessly into our plans for events and live music.”
McNeill explained to us that current plans are to invest the $1 million stage upgrades into the massive “Cloud Trees” sculpture in the park area, with the stage’s speaker system incorporated discreetly into the sculpture’s hanging silver clouds.
OAK’s General Manager Stacy Schuch told The Oklahoman earlier this month that the partnership with Bogert and Colton and the costly, ambitious stage design would provide Oklahoma City with new opportunities for “premier live entertainment.”
“We are in talks with Graham and Brian about leveraging their expertise to help bring live entertainment to OAK,” McNeill told Free Press.
Community concerns
It’s the expanding scale and new talk of “premier live entertainment” that is now making some city officials uneasy about the potential for problems like excessive noise and parking issues affecting the nearby residential neighborhood.
“Certainly hearing about it at that scale would raise concerns for me,” Pennington said when asked if he would still have approved the project if originally proposed with a much larger-scale outdoor concert and event component.
“You want to protect the neighbors from any noise or negative outcomes as much as you possibly can,” he said, “and we would be more intentional about finding ways to mitigate any harm to any of the neighborhoods around. That would include traffic, noise, whatever may affect that.”
McNeill doesn’t believe these issues should cause neighborhood residents any concern.
“We will adhere to the noise ordinances within Oklahoma City, which dictates ‘quiet time’ between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m.,” he told us, adding “We will work closely with residents and tenants to ensure that noise levels contribute to a positive mixed-use experience at OAK.”
As for parking, McNeill seems convinced that most event patrons and concertgoers will either be tenants in the complex’s onsite apartments or will leverage ride-share options and public transit like the city’s new RAPID line.
Beyond that, he told us that existing parking plans should handle any incoming traffic, even when asked about the potential for 1700+ person events.
“We expect OAK’s onsite parking to be able to accommodate all patrons for events,” he said. “As a mixed-use community, we know many of our event goers will be residents of the onsite apartments, alleviating parking concerns for those who do not live on property. In addition, we designed the arrival experience at OAK to support ride-share drop-off and pick-up.”
No neighborhood association to challenge plan
Some community leaders believe that potentially problematic expansions and changes to approved developments like OAK stand to be more easily accomplished in areas where there is no neighborhood association to present formal opposition to the city.
“There is no active neighborhood association at the base of the OAK development that we are aware of,” said Georgie Rasco, Executive Director of the Neighborhood Alliance of Central Oklahoma. “But it would definitely behoove them to have one!”
The developers are disrupting the homeowner’s entire lifestyle and property values in order to build their personal fortunes …
Georgie Rasco, Executive Director of the Neighborhood Alliance of Central Oklahoma
Rasco laid out an extensive list of what she sees as concerning elements of OAK’s location so close to residential communities.
Noise, parking, trash pickup, security, complaint processing, and even the wattage and direction of parking lot lighting are among the concerns that she believes neighborhood residents should be actively organizing around.
“The neighbors are losing out by not being included as non-cash investors in this development,” Rasco said. “The developers are disrupting the homeowner’s entire lifestyle and property values in order to build their personal fortunes, and if the neighbors would go to the bargaining table willing to work with the developers as a unified body, they could all be great neighbors and save a lot of future strife.”
Brett Fieldcamp has been covering arts, entertainment, news, housing, and culture in Oklahoma for nearly 15 years, writing for several local and state publications. He’s also a musician and songwriter and holds a certification as Specialist of Spirits from The Society of Wine Educators.
