Pei Plan

It is the informal name for two related commissions of noted architect and urban planner I. M. Pei — namely the Central Business District General Neighborhood Renewal Plan (design completed 1964) and the Central Business District Project I-A Development Plan (design completed 1966).

[1] The plan generated mixed results and opinion, largely succeeding in re-developing office building and parking infrastructure but failing to attract its anticipated retail and residential development.

As a result, Oklahoma City's leadership avoided large-scale urban planning for downtown throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, until the passage of the Metropolitan Area Projects (MAPS) initiative in 1993.

[3] In addition, real estate lots downtown — a holdover from the days of the Land Run of 1889 that settled the area — were too small to accommodate expanding business sizes.

[3] During the 1950s and early 1960s local Oklahoma City business leaders, including Dean A. McGee, Chamber of Commerce president Stanley Draper, and publisher E.K.

[9] City Council members chose for his replacement local civic leader and historian George H. Shirk, also a noted historic preservationist.

[10][11] Implementation of the Pei Plan required a series of land acquisitions while replacement facilities and buildings were being built, and eventually grew to differ from Pei's original concept as landowners willingly sold properties to the Urban Renewal Authority, while other landowners targeted in the plan vigorously defended against eminent domain actions.

Brown (which originally featured Oklahoma City-based ownership, but subsequently merged with the Dayton Hudson Corporation in 1971) announced plans to abandon its downtown location on January 30, 1974.

[25] The proposed site for the Main Street arcade — which was to have connected to both the underground pedestrian tunnel and the Myriad Gardens — already largely demolished, was minimally redeveloped into a surface-level parking garage owned by public authorities.

A preservationist group in Oklahoma City named the "Criterion Group" was named after the Criterion Theater — one of the most significant historical casualties of the Pei Plan — a French-style stage theater torn down in 1973 to make way for the Century Center (an enclosed shopping center which was largely vacant until 2015 when The Oklahoman opened offices in the space).