Oklahoma City residents and visitors to the state’s capital are certain to notice the construction downtown. Fewer people, though, might be aware of the impetus for or the scope of the construction and renovations taking place in a large chunk of the city’s once nondescript urban core.

“Oklahoma City is going to have a brand new downtown,” says Roy Williams, president and CEO of the Greater Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce. “Everything from building fronts to sidewalks, landscaping, benches – all new, more than 56 blocks of downtown. And at no cost to taxpayers.”

Williams and city residents and municipal leaders are all excited at the prospects of a “new” downtown, covering 180 acres and funded by the development of the new Devon Energy Corp’s new Devon Tower corporate headquarters.

The Devon Tower project itself, already towering over downtown, is enough to generate excitement.

“We have an economic impact model but we haven’t run it yet,” Williams says. “But the impact is pretty phenomenal, from many standpoints. The building itself is a $750 million project, with thousands of workers. Then it has to be furnished and maintained. Those first-day capital expenses filter through the economy. Then there’s the growth from payroll and all of the indirect spending related to the project.”

Devon Tower will be the largest building in downtown Oklahoma City and in the state, and Williams adds that it could well be the tallest building currently under construction in the country.

Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett says the economic impact was felt immediately.

“Since construction began, we’ve made consistent strides in sales tax,” Cornett says. “A lot of people are working in the building, patronizing restaurants and hotels – in addition to the supplies being bought.”

Certainly the single project is having and will continue to have a tremendous direct economic impact in Oklahoma City. Cornett points out that both Chesapeake Energy and SandRidge Energy are also investing in downtown corporate campuses, which further has additional effects.

Devon Energy Executive Chairman J. Larry Nichols says that the most important thing about the new corporate campus is that finally all of Devon’s Oklahoma City staff will be under one roof.

“We needed the building because of growth,” Nichols says. “Our people have been scattered among five or six buildings around town. This enables us to centralize everything, to have all of our people in one space and with plenty of room for expansion. We’ll have our own dedicated parking garage, fitness center, meeting space and conference space. It will be the most efficient thing for our employees.”

But Devon Tower’s footprint in the city exceeds the site it occupies and revenue it helps generate. Due to an agreement with the City, it will also directly benefit Oklahoma City in the form of a veritable facelift.

The plan, Nichols says, stems from tours of the city he conducted with architects and landscape architects who worked on the tower.

“It was interesting because on one hand they were impressed with what Oklahoma City had done with buildings,” Nichols says. “But they also pointed out that the public components were antiquated and chaotic.”

Nichols then approached the city to discuss establishing a Tax Increment Finance zone in the vicinity of the new tower. The TIF allowed the tax boon from the tower’s development to be utilized to rebuild sidewalks, reconfigure streets, create public spaces and landscaping improvements, as well as other improvements. Dubbed Project 180, the TIF plan is going to raise $175 million over the course of its 25-year term – all for public improvements in a 180-acre area downtown. Considerable investment is also being made in Myriad Gardens, one of Devon Tower’s neighbors.

“The city was thrilled,” Nichols says. “I’ve never known a city to be able to do an entire downtown in one fell swoop.”

Cornett says that negotiations were “very respectful.”

“Both sides wanted to have something,” he continues. “We created a downtown they wanted to locate to, and they want to have an impact there. Both sides were happy.”

Nichols says that Myriad Gardens is going to be complete this fall and that the downtown improvements will be in the works for another two to three years.

“One thing we wanted was to be able to do this at one time,” Nichols says.

In addition to new sidewalks and other infrastructure and green spaces, Project 180 will see traffic realignment as streets are adjusted to better the flow of traffic.

“They’re building us a whole new downtown,” Williams says. “There will be multiple economic impacts. Then there is also the image impact. People flying into Oklahoma City will see this huge building, lighted at night. It’s impressive.”

Williams says that as a result of the work Devon Tower is funding, he is already aware of other companies investing in downtown with plans to bring employees to the city and to hire yet more.

Both Cornett and Williams believe that the “new” downtown will be more walkable, more amenable to bicycling, and more pedestrian friendly in general.

“I think the number of people who live in and visit downtown will increase,” Cornett says.

Historically, downtown residences are key to a vibrant center city, and Cornett says that he thinks that there is market demand for additional housing downtown.

“I just don’t think there is enough entry-level housing, but I believe demand is there,” the mayor says.

Current downtown property owners will benefit from enhanced property values, Williams says, and locals and visitors will have the added value of restaurants and retail located on the ground floor of Devon Tower and the parking garage.

The pubic will also be able to enjoy what promises to be a spectacular view from atop the 50-story tower.

“The top two floors are going to be a restaurant and bar,” Nichols says. “We realize a lot of people would want to get to the top of the building and see what the view from up there looked like.”

Nichols says the topping off of Devon Tower would occur in mid-December and that employees would start moving in lower floors in February 2012.

“Downtown is continuing to develop,” Cornett says.

Transformers. Terminators. Number 5. Rebellious robots are nothing new to the pop culture canon. But what happens when your child’s Smart Toys start developing minds of their own? When elevators become homicidal?

The buzz among critics and readers is that no one has turned the age-old robot uprising theme on its head like Tulsa-born writer Daniel H. Wilson. Author of such previous titles as How to Survive a Robot Uprising, How to Build a Robot Army and A Boy and His Bot, Wilson has struck literary gold with his New York Times bestselling novel Robopocalypse. The book, which follows the disastrous trajectory of what befalls the human race when our everyday technology turns treacherous, has seized the imaginations – and fears – of readers everywhere and is being hailed as one of the best thrillers of the summer
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The novel goes into grisly and downright creepy detail on the battle between humans and robots. But if the idea of a real “robopocalypse” keeps you awake at night, don’t fret. Wilson, who holds a doctorate in robotics from Carnegie Mellon University and thus could be called “in the know,” doesn’t seem too worried about his fiction becoming the future. And he is especially optimistic about the survival chances of his home state.

 “Oklahoma is a top-notch place for surviving the robot uprising because it is relatively rural, and there are local tribal governments that can step in to preserve order in the event that the larger United States government has collapsed,” he says.

The novel is partly set in Oklahoma and features plenty of locations and entities that will be familiar to natives of the state.

Creating almost as much furor as the novel itself is director Steven Spielberg’s rapid move to purchase the film rights to the book – before it was even finished.

 “I wrote a 40-page book proposal and a 100-page sample of Robopocalypse, and my literary agent took them out to the publishing houses in New York City,” Wilson says. “A scout for the movie studios got hold of the submission and immediately leaked the sample pages to DreamWorks. The pages (which didn’t have my name on them) made their way to Steven Spielberg. He made the decision to track me down and make an offer right away. One week later, I was sitting in a room talking to the filmmakers and promising them more pages.”

Wilson’s fascination with all things tech began during his early years in Tulsa.

“In high school, I got really into computers and programming and science fiction,” he says. “I read lots of short stories, but especially liked Philip K. Dick, Kurt Vonnegut and Ray Bradbury – and, of course, Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke.”

After high school, Wilson went on to get his bachelor’s degree from The University of Tulsa before attending CMU.

 Now 33, he has turned his passion for science into a full-time writing career. As evidenced by his works, though, the love of technology and its potential has not taken much of a back seat to books.

“Watching my old friends from school progress in their careers is a real treat,” he says. “The goofy kids I used to study with are now doing things like driving the Mars Rover, putting autonomous cars into cities and designing the next generation of Roombas. I’m a full-time writer now and I don’t officially belong to the ‘roboticist’ club anymore, but I like to think I’m an honorary member.”

Although Wilson calls Portland, Ore., home now, he is nostalgic about his years in Oklahoma.

“I loved growing up in Tulsa,” he says, “Specifically between Harvard and Yale just north of Admiral. I have a lot of fond memories: my little brother and I riding bikes down to the creek with our dog following us, walking to Owen Elementary School and visiting our grandpa in Wagoner,” he says. “Every Saturday, my dad would take us swimming at the downtown YMCA, then to Three B’s to buy used books, and then to Coney I-Lander for hotdogs. One thing I miss now is drinking frosty mugs of root beer from the old A&W root-beer stand and going to the Admiral Twin drive-in with my family. Good times.”

 And while his home state may be the ideal hideout from the forces of technology, Wilson urges caution for Oklahomans in the event of a true robot apocalypse.

“My advice for this completely fictional situation is not to flee the cities and run for the country unless you know how to survive there.”

Words to live by.