OKC City Council OKs Clara Luper Center plan, Union Station reno

-- Holds unexpected discussion on urban sprawl near Deer Creek

OKLAHOMA CITY (Free Press) — While the regular meeting of the City Council of Oklahoma City was much shorter than usual Tuesday, the Council still managed to approve an operating agreement for the coming Clara Luper Civil Rights Center project from MAPS 4.

The Council also approved folding the renovation of the Union Station building in what is now Scissortail Park into the MAPS 3 project list to use additional MAPS 3 money for the project, as well as to allow the MAPS office to act as project manager.

Late in the meeting, what likely would have been a simple unanimous vote to correct some scriveners’ errors in an annexation of land outside OKC City Limits became a somewhat tense discussion of citizen participation and urban sprawl, resulting in an uncustomary public hearing to be held at the next Council meeting.

Marty Peercy reports Local government

Luper Center

One of the slate of projects in the MAPS 4 package is the restoration of the Freedom Center in Oklahoma City’s historic east side, a building that was once the headquarters for the local chapter of the NAACP and served as the staging area for the history-changing Katz Drug sit-in in downtown Oklahoma City to challenge segregation in the United States. 

Katz Drug Sit-in
Students with adult leaders stage one sit-in among several at Katz Drug Store in downtown Oklahoma City in 1958. Under legalized segregation by race, Katz Drug and several other drug store chains agreed to sell food to black people who paid at the register at the end of the counter, waited while standing, and then took it in a paper back outside to eat it. The act of black people sitting at the lunch counter was an act of protest of the segregation laws that allowed private businesses to practice racial segregation. Photo credit: Oklahoma Historical Society, John Melton Collection (1958)

The now celebrated act of civil disobedience was planned by local educator and community leader Clara Luper. The sit-in included mostly students, some very young, and some adults in 1958. This event sparked a series of similar actions here and across the U.S. that changed the way our country engages in considering race and equality.

The Clara Luper Civil Rights Center is a $16 million dollar project to both preserve the original Freedom Center building, but also to create a center for civil rights history, education, and community building.

Project Director Christina L. Beatty gave a presentation to the Council about what are developed so far by the consortium of actors now formally listed as The Freedom Center of OKC, LLC.

Beatty explained to the Council that the group had been receiving consultation from Lord Cultural Resources, a global firm that helps create institutions for cultural preservation. Notably, Lord has been involved locally with the development of both the First Americans Museum and Oklahoma Contemporary, both of which have seen a great deal of nationwide attention.

Initial plans for the complex that will be the Luper Center include the existing Freedom Center building and a new, much larger and better appointed building for the actual civil rights center.

Currently, the Freedom Center is already being preserved by work crews, with construction ongoing.

Plans for the new center are not fully formed, but initial plans include a welcoming public space.

Beatty endeavored to enlighten the Council to the vision of the organization for the Clara Luper Civil Rights Center.

The center will focus on three offerings. Those will include exhibits permanent, semi-permanent, and temporary. The site will also house an archive of the documents and artifacts from the Freedom Center and around the community to create a longstanding public history of the area and the local struggle for civil rights, which has not yet reached a conclusion.

According to Beatty, the most important part of the center, “the heartbeat of the center” as she said, will be in programming.

The group intends to create and host mentorship programs, continuing learning and education for community members for life, and programming to foster community building and a sense of belonging.

The operating agreement was approved unanimously.

Union Station

As part of the Council’s consent docket was an item related to the renovation of the long-standing Union Station train depot building that resides in what is now Scissortail Park.

The former train station was a bustling port of entry to the Oklahoma City community until the 1960s when, according to the PowerPoint presented by public works director Eric Wenger, rail service “declined.”

After that, the building suffered from years of divestment radiating from the disinvestment in passenger rail service for Oklahoma which served the oil, tire, and automobile companies. It became a place for storage and some offices.

OKC Union Station
The former Union Train Station in the southern portion of the upper Scissortail Park in Oklahoma City (BRETT DICKERSON/Okla City Free Press)

The plan approved by City Council on Tuesday will fold the hoped for, and now planned, renovation of the space for public and private use will be folded into the MAPS 3 funding and management plan. This will allow MAPS staff to administer the renovation of the space more easily, as well as open funding from extra collections from the MAPS 3 sales tax.

The building will include multi-use spaces for community and private events, in addition to historical interpretive experiences.

The budget for the project is $17.2 million. It was approved as part of the Council’s consent docket, which passed unanimously.

The Sprawl

In January 2022, Oklahoma City approved by the narrow 5-3 margin the annexation of 160 acres in the Deer Creek area alongside the wealthy suburb of Edmond.

On Tuesday, the Council executed a formal correction to that annexation ordinance.

Free Press covered this annexation when it happened:

At Tuesday’s meeting, the Council was asked to approve some amendments to the language of the original ordinance annexing those lands. In spite of the vote being a simple formality to repair what were essentially scriveners’ errors, a discussion of urban sprawl developed.

At the time of the original annexation vote in January, some residents appeared to protest, but the item was passed fairly quickly.

At this week’s meeting, however, two residents signed up to speak on the item that was introduced as a formality.

The first speaker, Kevin Ewing, is a landed owner who lives across the far northwest street in the NW 200s from the site in question. Ewing was concerned with the density approved for the new development. Ewing pointed out to the council that the property was under the purview of Oklahoma County until January. The County denied this application repeatedly.

Real Estate Attorney David Box, on behalf of the applicant, explained to the Council that the reason the County denied the application was a lack of water system serving the area. That, according to Box, resulted in federal litigation that allowed the developer to access Oklahoma City water, at which point Ward 8 Councilman Mark Stonecipher became the Council member for the area in question.

The issue passed with dissent from Wards 2, 6, and 7 representatives.

On Tuesday, the same Councilors argued that the urban sprawl creates many of the issues complained about by wealthy suburbanite homeowners who believe they are underserved by the City.

Councilor JoBeth Hamon* of Ward 6, pointed out that the representation of the three core wards of the city (2, 6, and 7) are not included in the conversations that end up effecting the services of the wards they represent, which have resources taken away to serve wealthy suburbanites who choose to build new structures outside the city center.

Additionally, the former superintendent of Deer Creek Schools spoke against the expansion by providing statistics on the school district’s growth. That growth is untenable, she said. Last year alone, the district added nearly 500 grade school students.

At this rate, she said, they would need a new elementary school building every year or two.

Ultimately, Stonecipher moved to put the item into a slower process, allowing a public hearing in two weeks.

The City Council meets again on September 13 at 8:30 a.m.


*Disclosure: Reporter Marty Peercy is the husband of Oklahoma City Council member JoBeth Hamon.


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Columnist covering local government in Oklahoma City and Oklahoma County from May 2019 through June 2023.