Box, a developer and owner of The Greens Country Club, said he has has few alternatives in connection with the sacred dome, which long ago lost its glistening golden look of yesteryear.
His top options include the sale of the property or its demolition. Box is losing $10,000 a month on the old, vacant bank building since the last tenants cleared out at the end of December.
To make matters worse, the iconic building, located at N.W. 23rd Street and Classen Boulevard, is deed-restricted from being used as a bank, which was its original purpose when built in 1958.
The Gold Dome’s return to the headlines last week came when Box tried to secure a demolition permit, only to discover the application would require approval by the Oklahoma City Urban Design Commission.
Since then, Box said he has been sifting through every possibility to make the landmark a financial success. He’s even talked to local experts about tax credits in connection with historic places. The Gold Dome was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2003.
Catherine Montgomery, an architect who specializes in historic-preservation tax-credit projects, said if Box chose to renovate the building, he could recoup 40 percent of the cost through federal and state tax credits.
Among a litany of other items, improvements to the round anodized aluminum roof would cost about $2.5 million. That figure could go higher depending how the structure is used.
So far, none of the ideas to turn the Gold Dome around have panned out. Suggestions have included restaurants, a nightclub and office space.
“I’ve had about every restaurant person in town look at it, and they won’t touch it,” Box said. “I’m willing to listen to anyone who has an idea. There’s not a lot of interest in terms of people spending money on it. There’s no return.”
Box purchased the building for $800,000 at a foreclosure auction last September after the previous owner, Dr. Irene Lam, stopped making payments.
At that time, Box said he did not have plans to tear it down, but he also acknowledged he didn’t have any plans to develop the property.
“I want options,” he said. “But the building is losing so much money. The heat and air [conditioning] is shot, and the roof needs to be repaired, but we’re still trying to come up with a plan. I’m not a guy who tears things down.”
Box’s track record would indicate that. He’s been instrumental in the redevelopment of Campus Corner in Norman while also purchasing and developing city properties in Bricktown and along Automobile Alley.
Money aside
Preservation and history buffs want the Gold Dome kept intact.
Lisa Chronister, an OKC architect, was among a group who fought the dome’s proposed razing a decade ago when Bank One, then the owner, filed for its own demolition permit.
“I cannot believe we are here again, 10 years later,” she said. “Everyone I know is still committed to saving it. I have to think there is some system of metrics that make it
viable. Without question, it is one of the most unique buildings in
Oklahoma City with its strange, quirky, mid-century look.”
Chronister
doesn’t want to see a repeat of the old urban-renewal days when
historic buildings were torn down in the name of modernization.
“We’ve
torn down too much that we regret, so we have to take the long view,”
she said. “Nobody wants to see vacant buildings, but I’m not ready to
say it’s a done deal.”
Neither
is Box, who has until Tuesday to file a demolition application. On
April 24, the Urban Design Commission would consider the request.
Bob
Blackburn, executive director of the Oklahoma Historical Society, said
the dome should be preserved because of its unique design, location and the shared memories people have of the building.
“People
grew up seeing that, and it reminds us of home. It’s part of our
personality as a community,” he said. “That area was the main connection
for people in the 1950s and 1960s. People look at that building and
say, ‘There’s nothing else like it.’”
The Gold Dome was designed by
Robert B. Roloff of the Oklahoma architecture firm Bailey, Bozalis,
Dickinson and Roloff in collaboration with Kaiser Aluminum Corp. The
building was based on the geodesic design by inventor, architect and
engineer Buckminster Fuller.
This article appears in Mar 13-19, 2013.