Pei Plan (Oklahoma City)

The Pei Plan was an urban redevelopment initiative designed for downtown Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States, in the 1960s and 1970s. It is the informal name for two related commissions of noted architect and urban planner I.M.Pei – namely the Central Business District General Neighborhood Renewal Plan (design completed 1964) and the Central Business District Project I-A Development Plan (design completed 1966). It was formally adopted in 1965, and implemented in public and private phases throughout the 1960s and 1970s.

The plan called for the demolition of hundreds of antiquated downtown structures in favor of renewed parking, office building, and retail developments, in addition to public projects such as the Myriad Convention Center and the Myriad Botanical Gardens. It was the dominant template for downtown development in Oklahoma City from its inception through the 1970s, supported by Oklahoma City Mayor Patience Latting. The plan generated mixed results and opinion, largely succeeding in re-developing office building and parking infrastructure but failing to attract its anticipated retail and residential development. Public resentment also developed as a result of the destruction of multiple historic structures. As a result, Oklahoma City's leadership avoided large-scale urban planning for downtown throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, until the passage of the Metropolitan Area Projects (MAPS) initiative in 1993.

Similar to most urban areas in the post-World War II era, Oklahoma City experienced urban sprawl into outlying municipal and suburban areas in the 1940s and 1950s. At the same time, increased automobile traffic exhausted the limited parking availability in the Oklahoma City downtown area, a phenomenon which was exacerbated by the dismantling of the Oklahoma City Railway after World War II. In addition, real estate lots downtown – a holdover from the days of the Land Run of 1889 that settled the area – were too small to accommodate expanding business sizes. By 1962, 53 downtown retailers had closed or moved to the suburbs.

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