Bert Belanger

When I first began to pursue this series of Downtown OKC 2020 guest blog posts, I wanted to feature as diverse an audience as possible. The timing of the post displays is pretty much following their arrival in my email box. But truthfully, I couldn’t have timed it better if I had done the scheduling by some master design.

 The first post, by Casey Cornett, is a refreshing bit of optimism not by a young voice not jaded yet by the reality of rough-and-tumble politics and development. The second post, by Dennis Wells, is more analytical but also a fairly optimistic look at what’s ahead and what can be accomplished. Today’s post by Bert Belanger, in contrast, is a brutally honest take (influenced by his life experience and involvement downtown) of the problems that dog us today, potential obstacles to moving forward, and a list of how he thinks we can best progress as a city.

 Bert Belanger does not come from an independently wealthy background – his stake in the game was earned by his early involvement (he’s a lawyer doing development) with tax credits in the Paseo and pursuit of Tax Increment Funding for projects in the Flat Iron area (what he and partners early on referred to as The Triangle).

Bert has his share of admirers and critics, but I’ve not heard anyone dismiss his legal instincts and intellect. I suspect this post may anger some and I neither endorse or dimiss what he says – it’s a voice, however, that I think should be heard. – Steve Lackmeyer

 

 

When I became re-involved in 2003 in OKC development, I touted TIF (Tax Increment Financing) as the means through which the MAPS sales tax incentive could be “bootstrapped” to help create a dense mixed use environment. The target: a broadly defined “triangle” bordered by I-40 on the south, I-235 on the diagonal and on the west, a north-south boundary splitting what is now known as MidTown.

The Factory - an unrealized redevelopment of an entire square block in Bricktown pitched by Bert Belanger and the McLain family in 2003.

My first efforts were with ERC on Deep Deuce, then the Arts District, then The Factory, in which I was technically “Oh for three.”

However, we learned a great deal that we have tried to apply since. We conducted a market study of 14 peer cities that had neither sexy mountains nor shorelines and found that each had between 2 percent and 8 percent of their MSAs’ population within the urban core.  At the low end for OKC, that math translates to 24,000 people. Even counting the Jail, we are under 2,000 today. 

Now that a number of players have emerged downtown, the geographic focus has naturally gotten blurred. The Thunder and Devon Tower have brought into the game two 800-lb gorillas – the NBA owners group and Devon Energy. To a significant but lesser extent, Sandridge, the Humphreys family, Roy Oliver/Mark Beffort and CHK/McClendon have gained strong positions in the core. Greg Banta/Bob Howard/Mickey Clagg and Corsair/Smith Brothers have made a number of speculative buys in MidTown that are starting to see life. Steve Mason, Chris and Meg Salyer, Nick Preftakes, BMI and Earl Neighbors have taken very different but positive approaches as user/owners.

The Greater Oklahoma City Chamber and the City Staff are clearly and rightfully feeling their oats, while the Oklahoma City Urban Renewal Authority has been weakened by Larry Nichols’ departure and the controversial pick of The Hill’s developer, which probably has spawned a winding down of some trustees’ long running influence. The approval of a un-Urban design for the Chamber’s building was an unfortunate reminder of the darker days in OKC history before the Bombing made consensus and grass roots projects possible over politics.

The highly-anticipated Brownstones at Maywood Park have not sold as quickly as hoped.

A perceived negative out there is that the former Triangle group has splintered, which is true but not necessarily a bad thing, as each of us can now play in their own sandboxes and probably get more done, and I think Maywood Park has been unfairly maligned as a bit of a bust as most of the brownstones sit empty. I say unfairly because I think they will ultimately sell, and because the City got exactly what it asked for from all of the Downtown housing developers – expensive, high-end for sale homes.

Neither the City or Urban Renewal wanted affordable rentals, as they turned down both of my ERC proposals for mixed income apartments in the competition for the Deep Deuce site (2002, with Benham) and the Arts District site (2003, with ADG and Raptor). The only for sale projects that have sold out have been the Centennial (albeit to mostly corporate buyers) and the Harvey Lofts rehab (only 17 units between $100k and $200k).

Dick Tannenbaum has made a very successful entre into housing development (Park Harvey and Lincoln), but not without hiccups (eg the failed attempts to condo both the Montgomery and the Classen). Block 42 has more dark windows at night than not, and The Hill deal is a ticking time bomb; the unpaid contractors will soon grow tired of waiting for their money and will no longer play as nice as they have been.

 The national meltdown has been a big factor, but the reality is that OKC has never been a big condo market. Also, no one can blame even the richest buyers for a reluctance to buy if the surroundings of a real dense and active urban village does not materialize as quickly as everyone would like.

The reality that the City is experiencing downtown is that critical mass and density matters most, and is not delivered quick enough through the linear production and absorption of for-sale housing. The decision by Urban Renewal and the City to promote and push for upper end, for-sale housing first was ill-timed to be sure, but generally a violation of real estate development fundamentals.

In my opinion, the critical path to successful infill Downtown development in OKC begins first with creating density of people using the real estate on a 24/7 basis. This happens quickest through 2 uses – Hotels and Rental Apartments, which more quickly put more heads on beds than any other use.

Everyone wants to experience an urban “Magnificent Mile” environment like Michigan Avenue, but Daniel Burnham’s Plan For Chicago took 15 years to draft and adopt and over 90 years to develop, culminating with Millennium Park, absolutely the coolest urban green space in America. That is why I think that the current Core to Shore emphasis puts the cart way before the horse. We need to finish the Core first in a most excellent way.

I believe that the following represents a better chronology for a critical path for OKC’s Downtown Development

1- Plan for Core to Shore through a broader 20 year long process and horizon, led and participated in by more than a couple dozen people, incrementally stopping and adjusting every 3-5 years to review how the market is responding. Mix in Social Initiatives like the Jail (on a more modest, phased basis, not as a response to another unfunded Federal mandate) and Homeless Center with the sexy stuff so that voter fatigue doesn’t kill the Goose that Laid the MAPs Eggs.

2- Avoid the consolidation of power in administering Business Improvement Districts comprising the current and emerging “districts” that make up the Downtown Core. Remember that absolute power corrupts absolutely.

3- Let the Neighborhoods and Districts decide where their boundaries begin and end and manage themselves through Business Improvement Districts and other Owners Associations. The localized characteristics of Auto Alley, Bricktown, Deep Deuce, Maywood Park, Midtown, Film District, Lower Bricktown, Courthouse Block, Devon/Botanical Gardens each have their own forces of will, market attraction and good design attributes that will help compel and sort out the timing and priorities of projects – politics should not.

4 – Use TIF creatively and broadly to include Sale and Room Taxes for discrete user-driven projects, as per the examples of the Skirvin Hotel and Devon Tower.

5- Inventory current infrastructure opportunities and challenges in the Core and create a priority list that gets addressed by TIF. Example on one end of the spectrum – we can cheaply double parking on Broadway through angled striping and narrowed, slower traffic; versus the other end of the spectrum – the costly Boulevard through nothing to nowhere, which only happens five years after the Feds fund I-40.

 6 – Agree that density, shared parking, connectivity and walkability are good and should be the paramount ideals for Project design.

 7 – Focus on Big Users and what they need to come into the Core.

 8 – Rental apartments can be tailored for sites big and small, renters rich and not so rich, and are the most finance-able class of real estate today and for the foreseeable future.

 9 – The Quiet Zone (property owners are seeking new gates along the BNSF railroad to quiet train noise as it passes through the Flat Iron district) is a threshold need that must happen first BEFORE any other project Downtown – it is absolutely essential to any private project of scale, and will create incremental value on both sides of the tracks for miles East and West, North and South.

 10 – Do not try to Force the Core to Shore – it is my sense that a relatively small group of parties are unduly influencing priorities. I am okay with the MAPs 3 Convention Center Idea just South of the Ford Center, but it is still a long ways to the South shoreline. Our version of Millennium Park will have to be birthed and season for 10 years before development happens naturally further South. The thing that could change this is if a huge User shows up, but none are on the horizon that I can see.

Please understand, I make no claims as to whether all of this is good or bad. It just is. The good news is the midget Mexican rappers and sumo wrestling are part of Cinco de Mayo celebrations tonight in a fairly dry tent at the Iguana Grill, NW 9 and Broadway. Thunder coach Scott Brooks, meanwhile, will be serving drinks at the Bricktown Brewery at Oklahoma and Sheridan Avenues.

Now if only we could get Brooks to sumo wrestle with the midget Mexican rappers … or am I being politically incorrect here?

It was, I admit, a quick answer that might have even been tainted by a bit of ego. Visiting with author and consultant Jeff Speck last week during a dinner with members of ULI, the discussion turned to Broadway and how ridiculously wide it is.

Speck, author of “Suburban Nation,” has been hired by the city to prepare a plan on how to make downtown more friendly to pedestrians. Nobody at the table seemed to believe that Broadway once had angled parking. I spoke up and said “yes it did” without hesitation.

The pressure was on after that. A.J. Kirkpatrick, one of the city’s bright up anc coming assistant planners, was at that table and I know he reads this blog. By giving such an answer, and being so cocky about it, I had to come up with the proof to back up my assertion. I knew I had seen an image of angled parking along Broadway, and sure enough, after doing some searching in my archives at www.okchistory.com (a private history site maintained by myself and Jack Money), the above illustration is at least a start at providing evidence to Speck. This 1920s image appears to be looking north from Sheridan Avenue.

-Steve 

Had a tough day yesterday – I drove through 90 minutes of torential rain to Tulsa to cover the National Trust for Historic Preservation, caught up with a few downtown sources there, wrote and filed my story on old Phillips 66 stations, and then began my trek back to OKC. Driving back, the company car’s tire blew out, and not having faith that a bicycle tire could make the remaining 50 mile drive, I had to wait until almost 9 p.m. for a wrecker.

Now I’m at Coffee Slingers at NW 10 and Broadway, where Melody is currently slinging brew with a smile for about a dozen people (several people walked in right after this photo was taken).

I suspect I know the answer. But I’ll let others debate the matter.

Let’s start with the idea that building an arena downtown will spur development around it. Here’s what I said in a May 2, 2006 column:

“Oklahoma City and MAPS is being mentioned a lot these days in Tulsa. The campaign for Vision 2025 was filled with comparisons to Oklahoma City, including the idea that Ford Center has boosted fortunes in neighboring Bricktown and that a Tulsa arena could spark similar development.

Bricktown merchants will readily admit the arena has been a bonanza to their businesses.

But they were all doing well before the opening of Ford Center, and it’s difficult to identify a single a business, other than the Courtyard by Marriott, that tied its opening to the arena.”

So BOK Center is open. It’s difficult to see how it isn’t a huge asset to downtown Tulsa – the design is stunning, and it’s clearly drawing Tulsans to rediscover their dowtown. But the verdict on surrounding development is still uncertain. A nice restaurant is open across the street, and owners are hoping to open a bar on the next block. And Tulsa has moved its City Hall in hopes of having the old one razed (no big loss for architecture or preservation folks) and replaced with a hotel or other arena-related development.

Michael Bates has his doubts:

“Since Des Moines has been cited as a model of downtown redevelopment — remember Bill LaFortune’s “No more! to Des Moines” at the BOK Center groundbreaking? — I was curious to see what was new.

I found the Iowa Events Center, cited six years ago by Whirled sports columnist Dave Sittler as a compelling reason for Tulsa to build a new downtown arena. The nearby area was as dead as can be — parking ramps, parking lots, office buildings. The arena sits near the river, but turns its back to it.”

Michael Bates should not be confused with a suburban anti-anything-downtown type. I’ve been reading his blog for years, and I’ve found his writing on downtown development and preservation issues to be consistently thought provoking.

In this same post Bates had some interesting comments about the Des Moines farmers market – and it makes me wonder what is ultimately possible for downtown Oklahoma City.

“On my way south to the stadium, I saw a lot of foot traffic and what looked like a street fair. Coming back north, I found the Des Moines Downtown Farmers’ Market, which occupies a four-block stretch of Court Street, plus two blocks each of 2nd and 4th Streets, from the old county courthouse to the river, every Saturday morning from early May to late October.

It was interesting but not surprising that the market was not held near the arena or in the ballpark parking lot or along the river. Instead, it was in perhaps the most interesting part of downtown, an area where old buildings had been converted to lofts with retail and restaurants on the first floor. New infill buildings were built to fit in with the old. Once again, old buildings — not rivers or ballparks or arenas — are the key ingredient to lively streetscapes.”

So, how does all of this play into Oklahoma City’s consideration of a future convention center site? Every site proposed to date has been in Core to Shore – away from existing hotels, restaurants and clubs. And the Core to Shore discussions I’ve listened to have envisioned a convention center as the means toward sparking development of the area.  And all along, we’ve been told Core to Shore is the only realistic place left to build a huge new convention center. But what if that’s wrong? What if there were a spot no local had ever considered – what if there were a spot that is located in the heart of all the downtown hotels, restaurants and clubs – and had immediate access to hundreds and hundreds of parking spaces?

And what if choosing this location could literally be the final key to having a strong, vibrant and full Central Business District, Bricktown, Deep Deuce and Automobile Alley? Couldn’t such a feat be the key to sparking development of Core to Shore? Think about it – instead of trying to create a new island of development next the existing incomplete downtown, wouldn’t it make sense for Core to Shore to grow as a result of downtown being finished?

Such an option doesn’t exist you say? You’re wrong.

A very, very cool vibe is emerging along NW 9, where the Iguana Mexican Grill is already proving to be one of the hottest new restaurants to open downtown in quite some time.

Have fun and spot the downtown players … my spottings included Greg Banta visiting with Mickey Clagg (now that’s a discussion I’d like to listen in on), Bert Belanger, who was accompanied by a Houston apartment developer (just visiting, I’m sure), Chris and Meg Salyer, who I’ll bet are simply bewildered by the idea that Steve Mason has taken properties on the verge of collapse and spent millions to bring them back to life (this inside joke is a test on how much you know about the history of Automobile Alley), architect Rand Elliott and his wife Jeanette (still waiting to see what Kerr Park will look like), MidTown’s Arturo Chavez (quit following me!), the usual gang from Downtown Oklahoma City Inc., Skirvin Hilton General Manager John Williams, that crazy river guy Pat Downes, and many more.

Final note: Ah… free food and drink. Sure fire way to get a reporter in the room. This issue of Oklahoma Today is really impressive – it’s a nice recap of what’s going on downtown and throughout the city.