Residential/Mixed Use Developments and Resources - Downtown/Midtown area

The total number of proposed residential units in Downtown is DOUBLE the number of units that are existing.

PS I worked really hard on this, lol. Might have left some out.

The Triangle - http://www.thetriangleokc.com
New Mixed Use District, downtown. "Approximately" 781 residential units, grocery, pharmacy, commercial and retail spaces proposed. Certainly the most ambitious and my personal favorite of all OKC projects.

http://www.thetriangleokc.com/images/visionmapsmall.jpg

Midtown - http://midtownok.com
Midtown property owners are getting very ambitious with the creation of their new website. There aren't real details or a master plan released yet, just individual projects. Midtown will likely be similar to the Triangle.

Block 42 - http://block42.com
Downtown Residential. 42 luxury units.

http://9.forumer.com/uploads/urbanok/post-46-1129957524.jpg

The Hill -
Downtown Residential. 171 luxury units.

The Classen - http://www.theclassen.com/Home
Midtown highrise condominiums, 80 units/21 stories. Conversion of Citizen's Tower offices, Frank Lloyd Wright inspired building.

Views from the Classen:
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b26/okcland/12-05downtown.jpg
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b26/okcland/12-05classennorth.jpg

Park Harvey Apartments -
CBD residential. 178 units, converted from offices in 17-story Park Harvey building.

Tan building at center:
http://www.dougloudenback.com/downtown/56.jpg

Kerr Conversions -
CBD residential. Three Kerr-McGee owned vacant office buildings to be converted into approximately 70 luxury units.

India Temple, with vintage image of original facade:
http://www.dougloudenback.com/downtown/vintage/indiatemple2.jpg

The Chandelier -
Automobile Alley residential. 35 luxury rental units.

http://mysite.verizon.net/res17zef/1101broadway.jpg

Central Avenue Villas -
Downtown condominiums. 30 condos.

Legacy Summit at Arts Central -
Arts district downtown residential, ground floor retail. Lots of setbacks, could be cancelled. 303 units.

http://maps.newsok.com/features/maps/images/maps_legacy_lg.jpg

Bricktown condos -
Bricktown downtown residential.

Canalside and center:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v671/Simwiz/lb2.jpg

Mysterious unannounced Midtown Highrise project by Rick Dowell, "ca. 250 units", limited information, revealed in Chamber of Commerce's downtown study.

Sieber Hotel Conversion -
Midtown, 30 apartments, 8 loft style apartments, and 5000 sf of ground-level retail.

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Total: 1,978 units :eek2:

Shane - Very, very impressive stuff! Thanks for taking the time to put this together.

A very underrated city IMHO!

thats is awesome man

A study was done that showed downtown OKC could support 12,000-12,500 units, and right now we have less than 1,000. So you can imagine how the developers have descended upon us... It's really exciting. New residential announcements almost weekly.

And john, I'm not sure if OKC is underrated or just unknown... I think a lot of people simply don't know.

Very cool, indeed. :)
Are there any recent proposals for any tall buildings? :)

The Factory was a 15 story mixed use tower for Bricktown, but it seems to have evaporated. A new person bought the property (1 square block for $10.5 million at auction), and he's a big local residential developer in the suburbs, so I'm hoping he'll come up with something big and residential. Couple of hotels, not too big, just 10 stories.

OKC has had a big problem with vacancy downtown- The focus shifted to the northwestern part of the city. So right now they are able to mostly do conversions from office space to better office space or residential. When we get the 30% vacancy lowered, I'm hoping big things will come.

But the vacancy rate really says nothing about downtown- there is currently $2.5 billion in investment in the dt area, according to a study by the Chamber of Commerce. Most of that is generated by MAPS, our tax initiative project that has given us an NBA-caliber arena, revitalized abandoned warehouses into an entertainment district with a canal system, created a 7 mile river south of downtown, and added a beautiful downtown library and art museum, among other things.

I'll post more residential developments here as they come.

Thanks Shane. I live in an unknown city experiencing a downtown boom like OKC, so I know the feeling! Lets show em! Nice post, I wanna see some construction pics ;)

Excellent update!!! And the skyline looks really great from The Classen :okay:

Actually, according to a recent statement from my office, OKC's inner city is a modern day Versaille. That is, the amount of construction money that resulted from MAPs could build Versaille anew in today's dollars. Which caculates to about a 215% return on the money OKC spent on MAPs.

Very cool, indeed. :)
Are there any recent proposals for any tall buildings? :)

A Hampton Inn off of Sheridan in B'town.

More Residential
New information and projects from the Skyline Snapshot quarterly publication. (Downtown OKC, Inc.)

The Hill (new picture - Info in first post)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v321/eyeblink/hill.jpg

The Triangle (Info in first post) Initial Phase
Brownstones at Maywood Park
15 units from 2,500-3,500 sf, $400,000-$800,000.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v321/eyeblink/brownmay.jpg

Bricktown Condos (new info - picture in first post)
30 residential units, canal-level retail, enclosed parking.

Central Avenue Villas
30 units, 735-2,800 sf. $175,000-$500,000.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v321/eyeblink/cav.jpg

Film Exchange Building
Conversion. 6 apartments with 12,000 sf of retail/office space.

222 E. Main
4 units, 2100 sf retail, enclosed parking. This will fix a major eyesore. Look at that grimy building... Not a huge project but it should be done soon and will be the first Bricktown residential.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v321/eyeblink/222.jpg

New Total: 2,048 units.

More than 2,000 units! Wow...

I must say, I love those new Maywood townhomes. Block 42, another substantial development, should be about to break ground across the street, if my geographic memory of this stuff serves me right.

Yeah I love the style of the Maywood Brownstones... They look really cool.

Art Noveau, I believe.

I also like the look of the Hill. That should be an interesting area to walk around in. Reminds me of San Francisco.

Downtown OKC will have so many more distinct, architecturally unique areas when some of these projects are complete.

Well San Fransicko can get back, jack. Besides, the architecture honestly needs to look like Oklahoma City. And it will. It will work, thus.

Some speculation says that the Triangle cannot fit the 781 proposed units into the space it is set to occupy without building something tall... We'll see...

New Developments:

Sieber Hotel Conversion (Midtown) - 38 units, 5,000 sf ground-level commercial
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v321/eyeblink/sieber.jpg

Also, two projects in the capitol complex:
-7 rowhouse townhomes
-the massive "Lincoln at Central Park," which will have 800 units on 47 acres, 700-1500 sf., each phase has own clubhouse with recreational facilities. A total of 50 buildings with units, 17 to be built in phase I.

So excluding capitol area, the total is at 2,086 proposed/uc units. If I include the capitol area, there are 2,893 units planned (counting only urbane major projects, of course.)

The Hill has a new website.

http://thehillokc.com

Has some pictures, floorplans, etc etc.

Hey guys. I'm from Dallas originally and I used to go up to OKC every couple of years or so. I've liked what I saw up there.

I have a question about the OKC downtown. Seems like I remember a large high rise building being demolished about 15-20 years ago. Does anybody know anything about that? I wasn't there at the time, but I thought I read about it in the Dallas paper. What was wrong with the building? What, if anything, took its place? I seem to remember that it had nice lines, but I was just a kid at the time.

Ah, I believe you're talking about the "Pei Plan Period" in the early 80s. I wasn't born back then, so I don't know very much, but there were plans for a mall designed by IM Pei in the downtown area. Entire square blocks (I think only two) were demolished for the mall. The developers weren't concerned because the economy was strong with the Oil Boom. Then came the oil bust, and the project failed to have enough money to finish (yes, AFTER they had destroyed the entire historic retail core of downtown!). The site has just been redeveloped within the last few years with the very nice and desperately needed Galleria parking garage that is half complete now. I guess you're farther away now in Nashville but come check us out; lots of things are changing fast. (As you can see from this thread!)

New Details Released - Bricktown Condos
This condo project was announced at the end of last year for Lower Bricktown. The building is in a prime site next to the movie theater and across the canal from the Centennial Fountain. New details have been released about the project.

11 units of the total 30 are already sold, and some of the retail space is leased. A 10-lane bowling alley and lounge and a Starbucks will be the anchor retail tenants. Two levels of retail will be constructed- canal level and second level walkway, similar to upper Bricktown designs. The remaining three levels will be the 30 residential units, and underground parking will be provided for tenants. It's a small but nice project, and the bowling alley is very nice to add another activity to Bricktown's menagerie.

Construction will begin May 1 and the project will be complete by summer 2007.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v671/Simwiz/lb2.jpg

The incredible demand for downtown housing is still snagging headlines.

A side not was included with this article that alluded that more residential announcements would be made this Tuesday.

(note: the article reports 700 units because it only counts phases currently u/c)

Downtown housing contruction booms
By Steve Lackmeyer
The Oklahoman

AFTER YEARS of pent-up demand, a housing construction boom is starting up downtown that will add more than 700 units -- more than twice what has built in the last quarter century.

The choices include the 17-story Park Harvey Center, a former office building being converted into 164 apartments, and Legacy at Arts Quarter, a 303-unit, four-story complex being built in the Arts District at NW 4 and Walker.

Deep Deuce and Bricktown, meanwhile, are magnets for the first construction of condominiums downtown since the opening of Sycamore Square in 1982.

Projects include The Hill, 157 townhomes at NE 2 and Stiles; The Brownstones at Maywood Park, townhomes along NE 3 and Oklahoma Avenue; the Central Avenue Villas, 30 condominiums at NE 4 and Central Avenue; Block 42, a five-story, 42-unit condominium complex at NE 4 and Walnut and The Centennial, a five-story condominium complex in Lower Bricktown.

Construction is scheduled to begin on all of the for-sale housing within the next couple months. And all of the housing has an average price of at least $200,000.

Darren Currin, vice president and research director of OKC Property Research, is among those curious to see how the market absorbs the onslaught -- especially with much of it set to open at the same time.

"The good thing about the condo development in downtown is it may seem like a lot, but look at percentages of building around Oklahoma City, and it's a small percentage," Currin said. "A lot are being bought as secondary residences, and this opens a bigger market than one might think."

Developers are showing no signs of fear, but are paying attention to the competing projects.

Two -- William Canfield, with The Hill, and Richard Tanenbaum with the Park Harvey Center -- say they're already looking for additional downtown residential projects.

Canfield has no doubt in the validity of a May 2000 survey by Houston-based CDS Market Research showing a pent-up demand for downtown housing that could support construction of up to 6,000 new residences.

"We have a waiting list," Canfield said. "We have people who have demanded they be put on the waiting list."

To get on that waiting list, Canfield said, buyers must provide a $5,000 refundable deposit.

Canfield wouldn't disclose how many are on the waiting list, but added he wouldn't be surprised to see the development "sell out" the first week sales begin.

Similar confidence is expressed by Anthony McDermid, whose Triangle partnership is developing the Central Avenue Villas and Brownstones at Maywood Park.

With a May 4 groundbreaking ceremony scheduled for the Central Avenue Villas, McDermid is reporting five are already pre-sold.

Grant Humphreys, developer of Block 42, is awaiting a building permit to start construction, and has eight buyers with deposits in contracts and signed binding contracts.

"We've sold one-sixth of the project, and we need to sell four more on pre-sales to meet lenders' requirements," Humphreys said. "I'm not worried ... we have 12 more hovering."

Humphreys said he also is unconcerned about so much of the upcoming housing coming out at more than $300,000.

He said he has seen his own project prices go up the last several months. Humphreys is telling prospective buyers that early birds will likely see almost immediate increases in their home values.

"We're the first to have opened a sales office, and kind of led the market," Humphreys said. "Everybody was uncertain as to what the market would be willing to bear. But we've seen a stronger market than what we anticipated."

Tanenbaum is ready to exploit what he sees as his competitors' weakness: their inability to control construction and labor prices and need for a "middleman."

Tanenbaum, touring the Lincoln at Central Park, an apartment complex he is building at Lincoln Boulevard and Interstate 44, is quick to show off building materials he stockpiled before prices skyrockets in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. He also employs his own construction company.

Unlike McDermid, Humphreys and Canfield, Tanenbaum also has launched into the Park Harvey Center, and The Montgomery before it, without first going through the red tape of seeking public incentives.

"We're just not used to waiting, and we don't feel like we need to go through the process," Tanenbaum said. "If a project is worth doing, it's worth doing. The Park Harvey has all these wonderful tax credits available. We're pursuing them, but we've started all the construction. If we get it, it's found money. If not, it's still a good economic model and we're committed to it."

Tanenbaum also sees no shortage of demand for downtown housing -- so much so that he recently began converting The Montgomery from apartments to condominiums to beat the competition.

Canfield, McDermid and Humphreys all respond they're not shaken by such surprises.

"We appreciate the competition," Canfield said. "We'll do our best to have the most competitive product, the highest quality and best value," Canfield said. "And if everybody is working with the same goals, the consumer will have many choices and we will attract a lot of different people to downtown."

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Wow, now this is a good, dedicated developer that we have downtown:

Richard Tanenbaum, talking about getting tax incentives before starting construction:
"We're just not used to waiting, and we don't feel like we need to go through the process," Tanenbaum said. "If a project is worth doing, it's worth doing. The Park Harvey has all these wonderful tax credits available. We're pursuing them, but we've started all the construction. If we get it, it's found money. If not, it's still a good economic model and we're committed to it."

The other thread which is pinned in the Midwestern forum (Midwest for some reason, OKC is southern...) and one of the more popular pinned threads.

http://skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=223555