Eyesores


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This beauty at 100 NE 8 has looked like this for quite some time. And until 2006, it was owned by the Corsair Cattle Co., which also owned the former Pat’s Lounge building on NW 10 now being renovated by Greg Banta.

The billboard is an interesting approach to zoning. This property is visible to thousands who travel I-235 into downtown.

The property was sold to the Triangle development group in 2006 for $353,000, and they are now seeking to have the building torn down. 

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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.