Supertall skyscrapers are obviously prestige projects. But ordinary skyscrapers make sense in cities with a relatively small business district surrounded by low-density suburbs.

There are lots of other similar examples. The justification for this in OKC just isn't there IMO --- and is unlikely to ever be there for one major reason --- limited water supply.

Major high density cities demand a large water supply.

This is more about them proving themselves ascendant, than anything else, if I don't miss my guess. A better model might be Dubai, also home to some famously tall skyscrapers... its density is probably lower than can justify those, but they were built anyway to prove how ascendant their form of Islam is.

Burj Khalifa is named so because Sheikh Khalifa of Abu Dhabi had to bail out both the Burj Dubai and the government of Dubai during the 2007 financial crisis.

In other words, it's all about marketing --- not logic, reason, economics or good urban planning.

In OKC, it's not just the spire but the entire building that is about showing off. The rationale is missing --- which is why I doubt it will ever be built as proposed.

In economic terms, a skyscraper tries to create, not merely to supply, the demand to live and work in it.

Many buildings are purely about inspiring awe (and creating demand), such as the Eiffel Tower, the St. Louis Arch and the Las Vegas Sphere.

Yes, these are awe inspiring works of art --- not intended or designed to provide housing for people. In other words, not really comparable to the proposed OKC tower.

I agree, if I was a lender I wouldn’t extend $2-3B to build ~1800 housing units in Oklahoma City. At a $2.5B price tag, that’s $1.4M per unit. The financials don’t make sense.

Maybe if we were still in ZIRP, but the federal funds rate is currently 525-550 bps.

You don't need a super skyscraper that's more than twice the height of the next tallest building in OK to address affordable housing.

Not a unique tower that has never been built before, and will have an absurdly high price per square foot.

Hardly anybody on HN wants to live in "the sticks" and you can build houses there pretty cheaply.

Housing prices can almost always be solved by moving, but people don't want to do that.

(To be fair, they're usually talking about moving from single family homes to allowing small apartment buildings of 4-20 units, not moving from single family homes to towering skyscrapers.)

Matteson Capital and Thinkbox[0] are cited as the clients by the architect AO as listed in the article

Developers take a big swing sometimes, sometimes to get interest in their proposals ( the internet likes it, so my local counsel will have to approve it ), sometimes to get attention from other partners to do big projects together. This may be a portfolio piece, even if never completed as proposed here.

I don't know much about OKC but a certain musical theatre work has me very interested in the wind loading studies for this building.

[0] : https://www.aoarchitects.com/project/the-boardwalk-at-brickt...

Among countless reasons not to build something like this in Oklahoma City, the place is basically nuked by tornados every so often.

Building 1800 units of luxury high rise homes costing millions per unit isn't how you combat high real estate prices.

This building would become a major tourist attraction. Will the leases and other income generated by the building be enough to pay off the bankers? If so, then it will likely be built.

All of them have higher population density and per capita income than OKC.

For example, Kuala Lumpur has 17X the population density of OKC.

https://www.travelok.com/

Of the people who go to Oklahoma for vacation, I would expect some of them would definitely make a stop at this building.