The Red River rivalry between Texas and Oklahoma is headed to new heights.
Texas boasts three of the tallest U.S. skyscrapers west of the Mississippi.
The 72-story Bank of America Tower in downtown Dallas was built in 1985. Houston’s 79-story JPMorgan Chase Tower opened in 1982 and the nearby 75-story Wells Fargo Plaza opened a year later in 1983.
No super-tall towers have been built in Texas since the 1980s.
But a project on the drawing boards across the border in Oklahoma could be the second tallest in the country. Developers of a downtown Oklahoma City project are proposing a 134-story apartment tower as part of a mixed-use complex.
The ambitious development in Oklahoma City’s Bricktown district would also include a hotel, restaurant and retail space. Construction on the first buildings – backed with $200 million in potential public incentives – could start this year.
Designed by California-based AO-Architects Orange, the Boardwalk at Bricktown development is in the same area where plans are in the works for a new sports arena.
California developer Centurion Partners is teaming up with local business interests on the proposed project. Centurion Partners is headed by founder Scot Matteson of Newport Beach.
The more than 2.2 million-square-foot residential tower in the development would be second in height only to New York City’s One World Trade Center tower. It would be more than twice as tall as Oklahoma City’s current tallest high-rise, the 50-story Devon Tower.
“To some, it may look out of place,” Kenton Tsoodle, CEO and president of the Alliance for Economic Development of Oklahoma City, told TV station Oklahoma News 4. “To others it might be, you know, something that really is a statement piece for the city.”
Tsoodle described the project as “aspirational.”
“If they build something like that, great,” he told the Journal Record. “Obviously, that would be market-driven.”
Fewer super-tall U.S. towers have been built in recent years. And some of the tallest buildings constructed in the last decade have been residential high-rises.
The tallest recent building constructed in Dallas is the 45-story Amli Fountain Place apartment tower downtown.