What it lacks in height it makes up for in distinction, experts say

They're the first things people see when entering Tulsa.

The mammoth white BOk Tower. The art deco spire on the Boston Avenue Methodist Church. The dark contours of the OneOK building.

Taken together, these dizzyingly tall buildings form a skyline of jutting shapes and colors visible from miles away.

Most cities can claim at least some random hodge-podge of varying buildings, but local architects say Tulsa's skyline is distinguished and memorable.

"We've got a very fine skyline anchored on one side by the Boston Avenue Methodist Church and on the other end by BOk," said Rex Ball, a retired architect and former president of the Tulsa Preservation Commission.

Objectively, how good is Tulsa's skyline?

The architectural Web site www.emporis.com rates city skylines with a weighted scale, giving points for every building above 12 stories and progressively more points as buildings get taller.

By their formula, Hong Kong has the most impressive skyline in the world with 119,616 points. New York is a distant second with 35,878 points.

Tulsa doesn't make the top 100.

Using Emporis' scale and the Web site's catalogue of the city's 61 tall buildings, the city would score 538. If the 60-floor Cityplex Tower, which is in south Tulsa, is subtracted, the number goes down to 338.

Oklahoma City's 48-building skyline scores 182.

Despite Tulsa's relatively

"We have a few more modern buildings than many cities, but we have a good range of more historic buildings instantly recognizable as unique to Tulsa," she said.

Ball said one of the city's most interesting architectural features is that the downtown buildings mostly originate from two separate eras.

By the end of the 1920s, most of the older art deco-inspired buildings were completed, he said. The 23-story Philtower building dominated, though many of the others averaged 10 stories.

"Many of the buildings were the same height, so there was really very little skyline back then," he said.

The relatively uniform look remained to the end of World War II, as few dominant buildings were constructed. That changed as the city's biggest skyscrapers arrived, including the Bank of America building, the OneOK building and the BOk Tower, which will officially turn 30 this November, according to officials from Williams Cos., the building's owner.

Ball said these titans gave Tulsa the memorable and well-spaced range of peaks and valleys we recognize today.

"The buildings aren't too close together so they read individually, and it gives us a very distinctive skyline," he said.

Elias said the spacing of the taller buildings gives viewers maximum visibility from nearly every angle.

"We don't have the buildings crowded so close together that they block out some of the real gems we have," she said.

Aside from the addition of the 15-story, glass-covered WilTel Technology center in 2001, Tulsa's skyline has remained consistent for a generation. But Ball said it will continue to evolve, possibly sooner than most would expect.

"The BOk Center and Convention center may have an effect on the skyline when it's finished, because it's certainly tall enough," he said.

$16 million in renovations, repairs in works for BOk Tower

About $6 million of that total is going toward renovated pedestrian bridges, granite coating for the base, new fitness centers and windows -- a lot of them.

"We're replacing every window on the eighth through 49th floors," said George Shahadi, director of real estate for the Williams Cos., the owner of Oklahoma's tallest building.

The remaining $10 million is being used to fix damage from a flood in December. A 24-inch water main ruptured and flooded into an electrical substation in the building's basement via a sidewalk grate, knocking out power in a 49-square block area.

Shahadi said the rush of water seeped through the walls, floors and ceiling, flooding the lower two floors to a depth of a foot and a half. "The water blew open a set of steel doors two-inches thick," he said.

The extensive water damage required Williams to completely renovate the lower two floors from floor to ceiling. The work, which is nearly finished, has incorporated as many water-resistant materials and seals as possible.

"We've floodproofed the building as much as we can, but when a 24-inch water main breaks, there's only so much we can do," he said.

To prevent another flood of that magnitude, the company has elevated the street-level grates within two-foot high, landscaped concrete islands.

The $10 million figure includes money for replacing computer equipment damaged in the flood, said company spokesman Kelly Swan. The majority of the technology replacement costs will be covered by insurance.

Williams' information technology services, temporarily transferred to a variety of company sites mostly in Denver and Houston, have been restored to the data center in the tower's basement.

"We couldn't move the center out of the basement because any available space in the tower is reserved for tenants," Shahadi said.

The tower is 80 percent occupied, with 250,000 square feet available for lease. Tenants include Bank of Oklahoma, Magellan Midstream Partners LP, Ernst & Young, TXOK Energy Resources Co. and Conner & Winters LLP.

Many of the remaining renovations are well under way, and some have already been completed. A sheath of granite now covers the exterior of the first two floors of the building.

Originally, the sheath was made of marble, and was erected with the rest of the building in 1976. But the marble had started to detach, Shahadi said.

"The marble was pulling away from the building, and there was no way to restore it and keep the marble," he said.

The solution was to replace it with granite, Shahadi said. He estimates the new sheath will last 50 years, much greater than replacement marble.

Much of the 15,000 square feet of granite Williams acquired was incorporated onto the south pedestrian bridge that crosses Second Street. The bridge recently re-opened after being closed for 15 months.

The bridge underwent repairs because it had literally started to crumble, Shahadi said. Water leaked inside, rusted the metal reinforcement bars and caused chips of concrete to fall on the street below.

Everything was stripped from the bridge except the metal core, which was re-worked and covered with watertight granite.

The 5,569 windows from floors eight through 49 will be replaced with more energy-efficient panes starting in the fall.

Shahadi said workers will pull the windows out from the inside, eliminating the need for exterior scaffolding. It is expected to take two years.

Within the next few months the building's north pedestrian bridge, which crosses First Street to a parking garage owned by the city but commonly known as Williams North Garage, will also receive a face-lift.

The bridge had been closed since the garage began renovations in 2004, and Williams officials decided to use the opportunity to update it.

Williams will soon submit the bridge for bids and hopes to have it reopened by next year, Shahadi said.

Two final renovations will leave the building with a pair of fitness centers. The tower already has one on the 51st and 52nd floors, but its use is restricted to Williams employees.

"We found that the other tenants were interested in this, but Williams people use it to capacity," Swan said.

Because the company's WilServ Credit Union moved its headquarters to a facility at Yale Avenue and 81st Street, the company decided to gut the vacant 6,500 square-foot space across from the building's cafeteria for a new center.

When it's completed at the end of the year, building tenants will have access to locker rooms, free weights, weight machines, cardiovascular equipment and an aerobics room.

Williams employees will use the new center temporarily in 2007 as their own center is closed through the spring. The rarely used track and racquetball court will be removed in favor of free weights and an aerobics area, and the women's locker room will be moved across from the men's on the 52nd floor.

Robert Evatt 581-8447
robert.evatt@tulsaworld.com

All about skyscrapers

• The world’s tallest building is the Taipei 101 building in Taipei. The building is 509 meters tall.

• Eight of the 10 tallest buildings in the world are in Asia.

• The tallest building in the United States, and the fourth-tallest building in the world, is the Sears Tower in Chicago. It is 442 meters tall.

• Three of the four tallest buildings in the United States are in Chicago.

• Tulsa has 68 high-rise buildings.

• Skyscrapers are measured in meters instead of floors because buildings have different ceiling heights. While the Bank of Oklahoma Tower is 5 meters taller than the CityPlex Tower, it has fewer floors: 52 compared to 60.

Source: www.emporis.com