The Oklahoma City Council approved a zoning change June 4 allowing a developer to build what is planned to be a 1,907-feet tower set to be North America’s new tallest building.
The rezoning, which passed by 8-to-1 vote, removes the height restriction originally placed on the site. However, further approvals from the council will be needed as the project moves ahead.
The California architecture studio AO and the developer Matteson Capital originally proposed Legends Tower, a sleek structure that would house at least one hotel and more than 1,000 luxury apartments, at 1,750 ft — just shy of One World Trade Center’s 1,776 feet. But earlier this year, they revised their plans and asked the City Council to approve a zoning change that would allow them to build the tower up to 1,907 feet with no height restrictions on the site.
The revised height symbolizes 1907, the year the union admitted Oklahoma, as One World Trade Center’s height represents 1776, the year the founders signed the Declaration of Independence.
The Burj Khalifa in Dubai stands as the world’s tallest building at 2,717 feet. Legends Tower will become not only the tallest building in the United States, but also the tallest in the entire Western Hemisphere and the sixth tallest in the world.
“This is the moment we have all been waiting for — to see how tall we can get,” Councilwoman Nikki Nice said at the City Council meeting on Tuesday, just before the council voted on the rezoning request. “People asked me, ‘What do you think about this development?’ I mean, the sky’s the limit.”
The project as currently envisioned consists of a base with three mid-rise towers and a fourth, the Legends Tower, that if built will set a height record for the U.S. and North America.
Mark Zitzow, a principal of civil engineer Johnson & Associates, said that in the three years since they first proposed the project to the council “the vision changed and the project became much more exciting.”
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Construction start for North America’s new tallest building
If the plan by developer Matteson Capital goes forward, work on the slender tower will begin in about two years as part of a second phase, Rob Budetti, managing partner of AO, the architectural consultant to the project, told the council.
The council did not vote to remove all height restrictions on the site without detractors. Councilman James Cooper raised concerns about the developer’s plans to include about 200 affordable housing units within Legends Tower and two other buildings in the same complex. Matteson Capital pledged to set those units aside for low-income Oklahomans, and early reports said it would partner on that initiative with an organization called Aspiring Anew Generation.
North America’s new tallest building, the Legends Tower will be part of Boardwalk at Bricktown, a mixed-use development comprising four new buildings. The first phase of its construction will include a hotel and two smaller residential towers; the developer will begin the second phase, which will include the supertall building, in two or three years. Rob Budetti, a managing partner of AO, told City Council members on Tuesday that he will complete the entire complex in about five years.
Read also: All you need to know about the Legends Tower, the planned tallest building in the United States
