By Greg Horton, Oklahoma Gazette
Read the full story at OKGazette.com.
The Field of Dreams analogy is inevitable when people talk economic development, and while more than one person mentioned it when referencing Convergence and Innovation Hall, the more apt metaphor is Matryoshka dolls, those nested dolls you might have found in a curio cabinet at your grandma’s house. “If you build it, they will come” works as an aspirational motivator for many things, but it’s less grounded in economic realities when the real estate is not adjacent to an Iowa cornfield and is instead on the I-235 corridor.
The nested dolls approach better describes the way to understand what’s happening in the Innovation District. The surrounding neighborhood would be the largest doll, followed by the Innovation District, and then Convergence, followed by Innovation Hall and, for the sake of this overview, BioTC. The Tower at Convergence, other amenities in Innovation Hall and Stiles Park are all part of the 5.5 acres that comprise Convergence. And in roughly 2026, they will be joined by a 104-room hotel.
Mark Beffort is the CEO of Newmark Robinson Park, and along with Gardner Tanenbaum CEO Richard Tanenbaum, matched MAPS IV funds in the amount of $10 million to make Innovation Hall a reality, and the two were integral to the development of Convergence.
“The 5.5 acres are home to a 230,000-square-foot research facility, 700 subterranean parking spaces, the 22,500-square-foot Innovation Hall, Stiles Park anchored by the Beacon of Hope, the planned 104-key hotel and another 230,000-square-foot facility on the way,” Beffort said. “We’ll have to add above-ground parking once that final facility is built.”