Another One Story Building for Lower Bricktown
Developer Randy Hogan unveiled designs today to the Urban Renewal Authority for what is the last major “pad” site in Lower Bricktown – a building that is tentatively set to be home to a restaurant run by the Hal Smith Group in conjunction with Thunder star Kevin Durant.
Unlike other buildings done by Hogan in Lower Bricktown, this one apparently includes no stucco on the facade, just rock and brick. Urban renewal commissioners appeared content with this schematic design, though they’ve yet to approve designs for construction to begin.
All this brings me back to the beginning, when Lower Bricktown was pretty ugly.
width="512" height="308" class="size-full wp-image-7611" />Lower Bricktown, 1997
To be fair, this site did require a lot of vision. Back in 1997, Urban Renewal commissioners rejected a rival bid submitted by Sooner Development because it envisioned “pad site development” – the very path eventually taken by the winner, Hogan.
So let’s look back at what Hogan proposed that gave his proposal the edge over his rivals:
The architectural style is very different. Also note - the proposal continued the dual canal-level/street-level development started in Bricktown north of Reno Avenue.
Things changed. Hogan ultimately built dual level development with only one building – The Centennial, which is a mix of housing, entertainment and restaurants. Hogan’s latest proposal is a one-story building, with no patio build-out to the canal. You can see the pad site in the photo below, located between the Harkins Theater and Toby Keith’s I Love this Bar and Grill.
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Comments
When a developer uses renderings to secure the project, there should be some requirement that they build it as pitched. Stop the bait-n-switch.
Why wouldn’t the city put more preasure on Hogan to at least develop multi level buildings in that area. Especially given the limited amount of lots. So, we have now reached maximum capacity in LB.
As a huge supporter of OKC and all things MAPS, I have to say I am extremely dissapointed. I can not believe the development we have ended up with as a result of our public ivestment. Who new the ballpark and canal investment would result in a Tobey Keith’s and Earl’s:(
Underwhelming to say the least.
I don’t think all is lost but we need more private investment to turn it around. I have a few ideas….
1) Turn the coca cola development (at least the huge sea of parking) into a multilevel huge parking garage with some retail on the lower level. The resulting garage could provide more than enough parking for sonic, the hotel and add new spaces.
2) redevelop the parking sites next to Sonic and the hotel to create more in fill.
3) Develope part of the Tobey Keith’s parking lot east of the restaurant and near the canal with more infil. The new garage could take on the lost parking.
4) Create another massive parking garage along reno in front of the u-Haul building. Make it nice and fit in with bricktown and add retail below. this would allow the other seface lots spread along the south end of the canal and south to the rail road tracks to be redeveloped.
I have a dream;)
The original rendering was pretty cool – a lot changed in the economy after that. I saw something similar to the rendering while I was in Tampa last year. It also had a neat look, 2 and 3 levels,right next to the waterway. The only thing was that it was probably 1/2 occupied, the rest was empty, which to me sent the message “failed development approaching”. Keep in mind that multi-story developments require more tenants. And the last thing you want is a site with a revolving door of tenants. So far I believe the Hogan development has had only 2 sites that have had multiple changes (more than 1), the sites on either side of the Sonic restaurant. LB is not lavish, but it seems to have been able to maintain some consistancy. Another way to look at this might be that not developing multi-story in LB means that businesses will have to look at sites in Upper Bricktown, where there is still a serious need for fill, especially at canal level.
No stucco is a good thing, I think I would ask Hogan for a build out to the canal.
Hogan’s new building in Bricktown looks like a retail strip center on north May Ave., built for retail traffic shopping for clothes. Nothing special.
I would think that for this location the building would look special to accomidate a restaurant with a lot more interest, like outdoor seating, upstairs balcony, etc. Guess it the restaurant doesn’t make it the place will be retail.
Steve, thanks for giving us the long view. I had no idea lower BT looked like that in 1997!
As far as the location, its not terrible. I wonder if any thought was given to other “hotspots” around downtown and midtown.