BOK Arena – Only one more year to go
1 Oct
The BOK Center is a 18,041 seat, 550,000 square-foot, multi-purpose arena in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The general contractor, Manhattan Construction Company is currently constructing this cool building. The US$240 million arena should be completed by September 1st, 2008. It will be home to the Tulsa Oilers ice hockey team, Tulsa Talons af2 team, rumored to move to the AFL when the BOK Center opens, and the Tulsa 66ers NBDL team. Ground was broken for the arena on August 31, 2005 and we hope it’s ready to go in a year. view live webcam of construction site
Naming rights for the arena were recently purchased by the Bank of Oklahoma. The arena is currently one of the Tulsa area’s Vision 2025 long-range planning projects. When completed its size will rival that of the Ford Center arena in Oklahoma City and the Alltel Arena in North Little Rock, Arkansas. Tulsa is one of many up and coming cities participating in the latest arena-building boom. The original cost of the arena was $178,000,000.00, but increases in the cost of structural steel, concrete, and labor due to a robust local economy have driven the price up.. Corporate sponsorship and purchases of box seats, luxury boxes, and other fund raising items have provided nearly $15,000,000 in additional funding.
MATRIX Architects, Engineers, Planners of Tulsa is Architect of Record for a team of Architects including César Pelli, who designed the arena. The arena is on budget, thanks to some corporate monies, in exchange for interior advertising.
The need for hotel space around the new arena has put forth a plan to relocate City Hall and use the property to build a new hotel. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BOK_Center)
I love this article! I think it is great that Tulsa is getting this facility. Thanks for putting it up!
Having been the only architect on the selection team I have kept the archives on the selection of the Design Team and the Construction Mgr. Very voluminous. I would welcome suggestions on who I should give them to -Tulsa Historical Society, Oklahoma Historical Center ?
Has anyone looked at this arena lately.The steel shingles look like well crap. I see that this may not be stainless steel take a close look at the east side of the arena what do you see….stains already.You can see every dent on the shingles also where it was hammered especially when the sun is shining on this structure.how thick are these shingles suppose to be because you can also see the skeleton underneath.Nothing like the picture i might add.I wonder what they were thinking when they design this building.Ok we are in oklahoma ever see your vehicles after a nice hailstorm hmmmm make you think.I will let you decide for yourself go any side of this arena if you can without blowing your struts and see what your tax dollars are really paying for.I think tulsa tech could have done a better job putting this thing together.Just my 2 cents
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