Oklahoma City University the Apparent Winner in Bid for Downtown Landmark
Oklahoma City University Dean of Law School Valerie Couch stands in front of Central High School in Oklahoma City, Friday, July 2, 2012. Photo By Steve Gooch, The Oklahoman
Oklahoma City University appears to be the winner in the rivalry with Oklahoma City Public Schools to buy downtown’s former Central High School.
That rivalry was detailed in an exclusive story in The Oklahoman last week in which the university first publically disclosed its effort to buy the landmark from American Farmers & Ranchers to turn into a new home for the OCU Law School.
Oklahoma City Public Schools superintendent, meanwhile, was banking on buying the building to turn into new administrative offices for the district. The school system had upped its bid to at least $8.5 million in funding disclosed to the public; the asking price for the property was $11.5 million.
Ron Norick, trustees chairman at OCU, confirmed the letter of intent was signed by both the university and the insurance company late Friday afternoon. A move won’t likely take place for at least another year.
“They want to stay in the building between one and two years,” Norick told The Oklahoman. “They’ll stay in, and during that time, we’ll be doing some space planning, architectural work, and get to know how we’ll finish it out inside.”
Norick added American Farmers & Ranchers intends to stay in Oklahoma City and will be looking for a new home. The company currently has more than two floors at the school not being used.
Law School Dean Valerie Couch, meanwhile, said it’s possible renovations of the un-used floors could begin while American Farmers & Ranchers looks for new space.
“This building fits our needs so well – at least it appears to,” Couch said this afternoon. “We will have a due diligence period to study it to make sure it will fit all of our classrooms and clinics. Our preliminary look indicates that certainly will be the case.”
Many more questions and issues related to this matter need to be looked at in coming days. I’ll be on top of this story with more coverage to follow.
Below is an email sent by Couch on Friday evening:
Dear Members of the Executive Board –
This afternoon, American Farmers and Ranchers Mutual Ins. Co. accepted the Letter of Intent we submitted to them for purchase of the AFR building. Under the terms of the LOI, we will deliver a purchase agreement to them within two weeks reflecting the price agreed upon in the LOI. Upon completion and execution of the Purchase Agreement, we will enter a 60-day due diligence period to determine acceptability of the property. So there’s a lot of heavy lifting ahead in the next few weeks.
I wanted to share this good news with you today, and I will give you more details as the process develops. This secures for us an opportunity to determine the building’s feasibility and acceptability of condition and also gives us time to address the financial structure of the transaction with the University’s Board of Trustees and lenders who must ultimately approve any purchase of this nature.
I know this is short notice but I would like to set a meeting of our board for Friday July 27 beginning at noon. I will send you more information about the place and logistics as well as conference call instructions for those who would like to participate by phone.
More details to come . . . Have a great weekend!
And best regards to all of you! — Valerie
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Comments
As an alumnus of OCU Law, I’m very happy that my alma mater has taken this step. It’s going to be tough for them to compete with two new public law schools in the DFW area and the two higher-ranked schools in Oklahoma. This is a big upgrade for both OCU Law and Midtown. I truly hope this works out for everyone.
Hope they can go in and restore the original theatre. It would be a great court theatre like they have at OU. It is the one thing Farmers and Ranchers did that most changed the structure. Thankfully when P.S.O. took over Tulsa’s Central High school of the same era, they embraced the theatre and invited alumni to assist with a full restoration. I guess the biggest change for them was the removal of the pipe organ to the new school location. That was prior to PSO’s arrival though and they did a great job of preserving the school’s original structure unlike they did with OKC’s Central High.
The same could be said for Classen High (the original) because they have gone in and changed it significantly. Back in the day your parents or grandparents went to one of those schools or Douglas.
I went to night school (high school) at old Central in the early 70s. It had wonderful large windows (perfect for daydreaming during class), transoms over the doors, and wonderful character. It would well serve either OCU or the OKC public schools, but I am kind of glad OCU has latched onto it — so students of another generation can enjoy it and not just administrators.