Last week, The Oklahoman put a report behind their paywall on the status of the once lavish, now barren, Chesapeake Energy campus that many of us impoverished plebeians very rarely ever get to see.
The gist is Chesapeake is hoping to "lure one company (or maybe more) that would commit to making part of Chesapeake’s home their own." In this post-pandemic world, where more and more people are working from home in their pajamas, and big fancy corporate campuses seem to be on the way out, that seems more like a prayer than a hope.
With that in mind, Patrick and I thought it would be good to come up with a list of better, more practical uses for the campus. In no particular order, they are:
Random Youth Center
Even though there’s a Big Brothers/Big Sisters down the road near NW 36th, with Chesapeake’s wide-open spaces, maybe we could turn one of these empty buildings and barren lands into a non-profit center for Oklahoma’s burgeoning youth. Offering afterschool projects, sports and so on, this could be a real boon to the neighborhood for today’s modern-enough latchkey kid. – L.F