CHESAPEAKE CITY?
Housing, heliport may be in company’s future
By Adam Wilmoth and Steve Lackmeyer Business Writers
THE mystery is over.
Chesapeake Energy Corp. has outlined plans for recently acquired property adjoining its corporate campus.
The company’s north Oklahoma City headquarters complex eventually may include up to 75 condos, restaurants and a heliport, according to a zoning application filed with the city planning commission.
The natural gas company, however, said the Planned Unit Development application is more of an outline of what may happen rather than a definite plan of what will happen soon.
“This just gives us the opportunity at some point to do those kinds of things,” said Tom Price Jr., Chesapeake’s senior vice president of corporate development. “There’s no grand design to get that done within any period of time.”
The planned development roughly covers the area from Western Avenue to Shartel Avenue and from NW 63 to NW 59. It includes projects that are under construction, such as more commercial office buildings and a parking garage.
It still is unclear, however, exactly how all the space will be used, said Tim Johnson, an engineer at Oklahoma City-based Johnson & Associates.
“The language in the PUD is specifically structured so that it allows flexibility within the plan,” said Johnson, who wrote the application for Chesapeake. “Chesapeake does not have a hard and fast master plan.
“As the campus develops, they may stop with office buildings and move on with condos, and that would be a good mix in the campus setting. They want to take care of their employees, so we thought about restaurants and cleaners. But nothing is concrete.”
Still, the city’s planning department Thursday approved the company’s plan and will send it to the city council for approval.
Assistant City Planner Bob Tener said the most immediate effect of the zoning, if ap- proved by the city council, would be to allow the campus to use a new four-story garage instead of requiring parking attached to each building.
Tener, who has worked with the planning department for 25 years, said the Chesapeake zoning request is fairly unique and can be best compared with the recent expansion of the Oklahoma City University campus.
The company’s plan requires specific architecture that’s similar to the rest of the Chesapeake campus. Also, buildings on the outer edge of the planned development would be limited to no more than 65 feet in height. Interior buildings would be limited to 75 feet. The application also allows public art of up to 25 feet in height and can cross public right of way, subject to approval by the city.
Chesapeake rapidly has transformed an area that was once an abandoned rail line known as the “Grafitti Bridge” as it crossed Western Avenue.
Working with architect Rand Elliott, Chesapeake has developed a corporate campus that is a gem among office complexes in Oklahoma City. It resembles a college campus — red brick multistory buildings with dormers giving it an academic air.
Chesapeake also has spent millions of dollars for a dozenplus office buildings and retail centers — including Nichols Hills Plaza, the retail heart of Nichols Hills — plus numerous parcels of land around its headquarters the past couple of years.
Southwest Oklahoma City developer P.B. Odom III compared Chesapeake’s campus proposal with Oklahoma City’s version of a multiuse high rise.
“We’re not going up 40 or 50 stories like they do in Chicago or New York where they have limited land. We spread out,” he said. “Chesapeake’s whole concept is vertical mid-rise or lowrise rather than a high-rise. It fits in well with our community. Instead of having a million square feet going up in the air, we just have it spread out over a few acres.”
It remains to be seen how successful it will be, Odom said.
“Mixed-use developments are highly successful in other areas of the country,” he said. “Oklahoma City is a spread out community, so we haven’t had a great deal of those. But there’s no reason to think it won’t be successful.”
Chesapeake’s real estate efforts, however, have drawn some criticism from investors and analysts who say the ventures may distract the company from recovering oil and natural gas.
Analyst Kristal Choy, however, dismissed the criticism.
“It will increases the company’s general and administrative costs, but I personally don’t find it to be much of a concern,” she said. “If anything, it reaffirms management’s confidence in the company itself. If they’re buying up land to expand the physical holdings for employees, I would assume that is a vote of confidence for their resources.”
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Thoughts and opinions on Chesapeake's interest in shaping up their backyard?
Housing, heliport may be in company’s future
By Adam Wilmoth and Steve Lackmeyer Business Writers
THE mystery is over.
Chesapeake Energy Corp. has outlined plans for recently acquired property adjoining its corporate campus.
The company’s north Oklahoma City headquarters complex eventually may include up to 75 condos, restaurants and a heliport, according to a zoning application filed with the city planning commission.
The natural gas company, however, said the Planned Unit Development application is more of an outline of what may happen rather than a definite plan of what will happen soon.
“This just gives us the opportunity at some point to do those kinds of things,” said Tom Price Jr., Chesapeake’s senior vice president of corporate development. “There’s no grand design to get that done within any period of time.”
The planned development roughly covers the area from Western Avenue to Shartel Avenue and from NW 63 to NW 59. It includes projects that are under construction, such as more commercial office buildings and a parking garage.
It still is unclear, however, exactly how all the space will be used, said Tim Johnson, an engineer at Oklahoma City-based Johnson & Associates.
“The language in the PUD is specifically structured so that it allows flexibility within the plan,” said Johnson, who wrote the application for Chesapeake. “Chesapeake does not have a hard and fast master plan.
“As the campus develops, they may stop with office buildings and move on with condos, and that would be a good mix in the campus setting. They want to take care of their employees, so we thought about restaurants and cleaners. But nothing is concrete.”
Still, the city’s planning department Thursday approved the company’s plan and will send it to the city council for approval.
Assistant City Planner Bob Tener said the most immediate effect of the zoning, if ap- proved by the city council, would be to allow the campus to use a new four-story garage instead of requiring parking attached to each building.
Tener, who has worked with the planning department for 25 years, said the Chesapeake zoning request is fairly unique and can be best compared with the recent expansion of the Oklahoma City University campus.
The company’s plan requires specific architecture that’s similar to the rest of the Chesapeake campus. Also, buildings on the outer edge of the planned development would be limited to no more than 65 feet in height. Interior buildings would be limited to 75 feet. The application also allows public art of up to 25 feet in height and can cross public right of way, subject to approval by the city.
Chesapeake rapidly has transformed an area that was once an abandoned rail line known as the “Grafitti Bridge” as it crossed Western Avenue.
Working with architect Rand Elliott, Chesapeake has developed a corporate campus that is a gem among office complexes in Oklahoma City. It resembles a college campus — red brick multistory buildings with dormers giving it an academic air.
Chesapeake also has spent millions of dollars for a dozenplus office buildings and retail centers — including Nichols Hills Plaza, the retail heart of Nichols Hills — plus numerous parcels of land around its headquarters the past couple of years.
Southwest Oklahoma City developer P.B. Odom III compared Chesapeake’s campus proposal with Oklahoma City’s version of a multiuse high rise.
“We’re not going up 40 or 50 stories like they do in Chicago or New York where they have limited land. We spread out,” he said. “Chesapeake’s whole concept is vertical mid-rise or lowrise rather than a high-rise. It fits in well with our community. Instead of having a million square feet going up in the air, we just have it spread out over a few acres.”
It remains to be seen how successful it will be, Odom said.
“Mixed-use developments are highly successful in other areas of the country,” he said. “Oklahoma City is a spread out community, so we haven’t had a great deal of those. But there’s no reason to think it won’t be successful.”
Chesapeake’s real estate efforts, however, have drawn some criticism from investors and analysts who say the ventures may distract the company from recovering oil and natural gas.
Analyst Kristal Choy, however, dismissed the criticism.
“It will increases the company’s general and administrative costs, but I personally don’t find it to be much of a concern,” she said. “If anything, it reaffirms management’s confidence in the company itself. If they’re buying up land to expand the physical holdings for employees, I would assume that is a vote of confidence for their resources.”
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Thoughts and opinions on Chesapeake's interest in shaping up their backyard?
