Nov. 3--Blink and you might miss it, but decisions that will affect downtown Oklahoma City's image for decades to come are being made at lightning speed.

Call them "the dream team," or better yet, the Delta Force for urban redesign in Oklahoma City. Either way, a group of city planners,

engineers, money folks, along with a contingent of big names from the private sector are meeting almost weekly to oversee implementation of a $115 million make-

over of downtown funded by the Devon Energy Corp. tower tax increment finance district.

Devon gave Oklahoma City a massive gift when it declared it would seek none of the increment funds for infrastructure, expanded parking or other projects related to construction of its $750 million, 50-story tower.

But the company's request to see the TIF money spent on improving downtown, and to get much of it done to coin-

cide with opening of the tower in two years, has some of downtown's best minds working overtime.

The Office of James Burnett, a landscape architecture firm based in Houston, is tasked with doing much of the heavy lifting. Some of the firm's designers are tasked with the $30 million makeover of the Myriad Gardens -- one that will include the removal of 30 percent of its trees, the addition of a cafe, restaurant, children's play area and ice skating rink.

Their designs and proposals are doing well with those tasked with deciding all this. The response is less certain when it comes to proposals for the street makeover.

At the last presentation, designers submitted a combination of six possible traffic light pole designs and two street lights. After looking at everything for a good three hours, the committee had an idea what they wanted -- and they

weren't seeing it.

A look through a book of work done by The Office of James Burnett shows a lot of award-winning park and corporate campus projects, but few streetscape projects.

However, no firm may have the experience for what's being attempted by Oklahoma City -- a makeover of not just a few downtown streets, but the entire core. So far I've found no examples of projects attempted on such a large scale, and on such a short schedule.

The clock is ticking and the timetable shows much of this work should be under way by the end of next year.

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