Not Bricktown On A Saturday Night
So Is It Unprofessional For Me To Say …
I really like these guys….
The Iguana is Back!
Read the whole story here.
Dog Days of Summer
It’s hot out there. But downtown is still moving forward at a fast clip, and I guess, so must I. As I’ve reported before, more hotels are likley to be announced, most of them in Bricktown.
More housing is coming too – and much of it will be targeted to the pent-up demand for downtown homes priced at less than $200,000.
I’m also beginning to see signs that the folks in Bricktown may be awakening to reality – let’s wait and see of course – but surely a decade of demanding $20 a square foot and not getting it should be a loud and clear answer from the market about what is and isn’t realistic.
Had a nice visit with the owner of Lit Clothing, which opened up in The Centennial. Overall, Lower Bricktown still isn’t hitting the retail mix I know some leaders hoped for several years ago, but it’s getting closer to offering the sort of diversity that’s been missing from Bricktown since day one.
I talked with Chuck Ainsworth, and yes, that is construction you can see starting up in what will the American Banjo Museum. Now, if only someone could close a deal to have the Mickey Mantle Museum. Then we would really have a regional tourism destination.
Automobile Alley is still humming along. I visited with Steve Mason yesterday and I’ll have a story on that soon. I also visited with Marva Ellard, and things are going nicely with her redevelopment of the Sieber Hotel. The Sieber family is still very emotionally attached to that old building and it’s not unusual to find one of them driving by … veeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrryyyyyyyyyy sssssssssssllllllllllllloooooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwlllllllllllyyyyyyyy.
Marva is definitely one of those folks I’d call a “building hugger.” I asked her what she thought about Bert Belanger tearing down the old sex offender houses and plans to tear down the boarded up nursing home on Broadway Drive. Her response was ho-hum at best… I’m not hearing from any people who really consider these properties a big loss.
That’s it for now. Sorry for the dearth of posts this week.
No More Crack Houses, No More Sex Offenders
Bert Belanger kept to his word and bulldozed a series of flop houses on Broadway Drive that have been an annoyance to downtowners for the past 20 years. There is something seriously wrong with a property when the arrival of sex offenders is considered an improvement over the previous tenants. The sex offenders were forced to move out earlier this year after neighbors complained they were to close to the Oklahoma School and Science and Math. It was then that Bert bought the properties from Hand Up Ministries.
Bert is to appear at Downtown Design Review Committee this week on plans to tear down the neighboring former nursing home, which has been empty for several years and is also a less than flattering image for passersby driving into Automobile Alley.
Reopening a Window
Yet another building along Automobile Alley is about to go through an upgrade – this time it’s the former Ernest Istook headquarters, now home to Frontline Church, at 712 N Broadway. Years ago the second floor windows were bricked in and covered with stuco. Now that damage is about to be reversed if renovation plans are approved this week by the Downtown Design Review Committee.
We’ve seen a lot of this sort of work along Broadway, which is always overshadowed by Bricktown. And curiously, we see little or nothing of this sort of improvement by property owners in Bricktown. Automobile Alley had a lot more boarded-up buildings a decade ago – now they’ve all been improved one way or another (only exceptions are at the corner of NW 10 and Broadway, which are slated to be fixed up by Greg Banta).
So here I go again, asking difficult questions aimed at Bricktown: why can’t this district take the same sort of pride in their neighborhood that is demonstrated by the folks along Automobile Alley?
Everything is Groovy
In case you missed it, I got to visit a pretty hip new downtown cafe last week (and by hip, I mean, can you dig it?). Read the story here.
History?
I can’t remember a time when these duplexes along Broadway Drive at NW 11 were anything but trouble for downtown. Several years ago they were well known crack houses. Hand Up Ministries bought them, fixed them up, and then turned them into halfway houses for sex offenders. The neighborhood didn’t like that either, and by last fall, authorities were responding to complaints that they were illegally within the prohibited range of a school (the Oklahoma School of Math and Sciences). Anyway, by winter, they were history.
They’ve quickly fallen into disrepair, extensively vandalized – likely by copper thieves. Anyway, Bert Belanger admits they are his now, and he is preparing to tear them down for an undisclosed future development.
Now, what would work well on this site (and realize his holdings will including the junk yard to the east on NW 11 and the boarded up nursing home across the street, which he also says will be cleared).
Read my story here.
UPDATE: Old Downtown Guy, a man definitely in the know about what’s happening in the city, comments on Bert’s past work and predicts that housing may be on the way for Broadway Drive. Read his comments here at www.okctalk.com.
Downtown at Night (Not Bricktown)
Yeah sure, there’s plenty to see and take photos of in Bricktown at night, but what about the rest of downtown? Here’s some intesting angles taken tonight along an increasingly vibrant Automobile Alley and in Maywood Park, which is awaiting the last element needed to make a neighborhood complete – residents.
The Hard Part
Steve Mason and architect Tony Blatt – one year ago – and now certified, battle tested preservationists and urban developers. Mason’s journey actually started even earlier – when he bought up the 1000 block of N Broadway, one of the last unimproved stretches of Automobile Alley.
1015 N Broadway is now fully rebuilt and home to Mason’s Cardinal Engineering, Bicycle Alley and Coffee Slingers. Yet another building on the block has been renovated and leased to Cricket Communications. Mason has accomplished much of what he set out to do – but we won’t be seeing the Iguana Mexican Grill at 1007 N Broadway as originally envisioned.
The question at www.okctalk.com is what happened?
There’s a reason this block took so long to develop. The buildings were in terrible shape. Habitat For Humanity’s Renovation Station occupied the first floor of 1015 N Broadway for a while, but the rest of the building was pretty much inhabitable because of structural problems. Mason’s costs were double the original estimates, and he had to gut the building to save it. But he was able to stay in the black thanks to historic tax credits. The building at 1007 N Broadway ended up being too big for the restaurant, and the structual problems there were even worse than at 1007 N Broadway. So Mason has moved the restaurant just one block east to NW 9 and Broadway (next to the new Oklahoma City Community Foundation headquarters) and as of last month the future remained murky for 1007 N Broadway.
Don’t assume the building will remain dark and empty forever. Mason indicated he’s continuing to look at how to make the project work with more tax credits, etc. It could be Mason is simply hoping to see increased demand for space on the block that might then make a renovation more feasible.
Sidenote: only three significant empty buildings remain on Automobile Alley – the old Marion Hotel, 1100 and 1101 N Broadway. All three are owned by Greg Banta and are part of his MidTown Renassaince development.
