Built as the Allen M. Street Myriad Convention Center and opened in 1972, it was a piece of a bond issue to make the city competitive for luring conventions and concerts. Documents with the city show the 1968 general obligation bond included $18 million for the “convention facility.”

With passage of the “Yes ’Em All” bond issue campaign, Dan Batchelor, longtime legal counsel for the Oklahoma City Urban Renewal Authority, remembers the authority acquiring the four blocks needed for the center from several landowners.

“Urban Renewal had the challenge of assembling the land, and then transferred it to the city,” he says. “The plan provided that was the best site for the convention center.”

Since it was completed, the arena, 1 Myriad Gardens, since has hosted Elvis Presley, Led Zeppelin, NCAA basketball and numerous trade shows, conventions, graduations and special events. As the city looks ahead, however, plans for a new convention center to replace Cox are in the works, but the ultimate fate of the aging facility is as yet unknown. While one group at the University of Oklahoma has looked at potential future uses for the site, nothing officially has been decided.

“Of course, the future of the Cox Convention Center is discussed. But that is not in our job description, and ultimately, it’s not our decision.” —Tom McDaniel

Despite talk that it might eventually be torn down, Tom Anderson, special projects manager with the city manager’s office, says the Cox center does not have an expiration date stamped on its concrete walls.

“It’s presumptuous to say we’re not going to have that arena,” he says. “That’s not an item that has been studied.”

Anderson says the city has a unique advantage with Cox Convention Center and Chesapeake Energy Arena sitting just across the street from one another. It allows for events to take place simultaneously in two arenas and helps lure others, such as men’s and women’s college basketball tournaments. But Anderson knows the convention center is aging, and does not offer enough space for the city to remain competitive.

“It served us well, and continues to serve us well to this day,” he says. “The greatest limitation that we have at this time is we don’t have enough exhibit space, ballroom space and ancillary meeting space.”

A new $250 million convention center in MAPS 3 will replace Cox Convention Center. In addition to its age, the center is landlocked. And while it does cover four blocks, there is no place to go but up. In places like New York City or Chicago, Anderson says going vertical is often the norm. In markets such as Oklahoma City, he says available land lends itself to a new facility, rather than stacking floors on top of an existing center.

In efforts to plan the new facility, Tom McDaniel, MAPS 3 convention center subcommittee chairman, says Cox is discussed, but his group only will help plan the new center, and not determine the fate of the existing convention center. He says the new facility also is not set to house an arena.

“Of course, the future of the Cox Convention Center is discussed,” he says. “But that is not in our job description, and ultimately, it’s not our decision.”

To keep the center competitive, it has received some love from the city in recent years. The most significant addition and upgrade was in the late 1990s as the first MAPS project funded a $60 million renovation that added 100,000 square feet to the center, including a 25,000-squarefoot ballroom.

A look at the Cox calendar now shows that investment paid off with a steady stream of events, concerts, trade shows, meetings and Oklahoma City Barons hockey games. On New Year’s Eve, it is filled with revelers for the annual Flaming Lips concert. In addition, Anderson says the 990 parking spaces under the center handle daily and transient parking.

“It’s still a functional facility,” he says.

Last year, Hans Butzer and his architecture students at the University of Oklahoma set to work on a study of the future of the Cox site. They envisioned a Downtown without Cox, and looked at how they could restore the grid Downtown with streets slicing through where the convention center sits, as they once did. The plans also showed how various retail and office options could fill that space and create an entryway from Downtown to the Santa Fe train station.

With a model built and renderings complete, Butzer and his students could one day be called upon to rethink the Cox site. For now, city leaders consider the existing center as a crucial part of Downtown. A few years down the road, they may need to take a harder look at the viability of the decades-old facility.

Mayor Mick Cornett has heard a lot of the talk of what will eventually happen there, but does not have a timetable for any future plans. He says he sees no reason to begin talking about warming up the wrecking ball just yet.

“I know there are a lot of interesting ideas out there, but I still believe we should put off a decision on the Cox Convention Center until we determine the next, best use,” he says.