Office, retail developments planned for Memorial Road

February 22, 2008

OKLAHOMA CITY – Two developments that will include office, retail and hotel space are planned along W. Memorial Road near MacArthur Boulevard. The Westlake Corporate Plaza and MacArthur Crossing are separate developments, each on about 18 acres.

Aaron Bailey, with Bailey Contracting, is the developer and contractor for both projects. The developments are planned on the south side of the Kilpatrick Turnpike. Just across the turnpike to the north will be the planned $100 million ProCure Treatment Center as well as a proposed cancer center owned by Integris Health.

Bailey said the Westlake project, just west of Brandon Place on Memorial Road, will be a Class A office complex with building sizes ranging from 10,000 square feet to 60,000 square feet with lease rates in the $18 to $20 range. That project has about a $25 million price tag.

MacArthur Crossing will sit about one half-mile to the west of Westlake, and include retail, office and hotel space.The building sizes in that project will range from about 4,000 square feet to 40,000 square feet. The project is estimated to cost $30 million.

Bailey started looking for a site for the projects about a year ago and purchased the Westlake land in November. The land for MacArthur Crossing is under contract and expected to close in May.

Richard Brown & Associates is the architect for both projects. Bailey said those particular sites were chosen because of continued development along Memorial Road, and the announcement that the proton cancer center would be built along that stretch.

The Gaillardia housing and office developments are also in close proximity.“When I looked at different segments of Oklahoma City the proton center was a driving force in making my decision,” Bailey said. “When you balanced the location, proximity to other services, and neighborhoods, and you added the $100 million proton therapy center, and another $100 million on another adjacent cancer facility, that made the decision easy.”

Barry Murphy, with Commercial Oklahoma, said Memorial Road continues to be a strong market, and he expects to see further growth especially with the influx of medical-related services, increased office space and strong retail.“Memorial’s got a lot of density,” Murphy said. “It’s a destination point. It’s going to be a pretty healthy, sustainable, and growing area, because you have a lot of dirt out there.”

The NAI Sullivan Group is handling leasing for the projects. Susan Davis Jordan, with NAI, said MacArthur Crossing will serve the needs of office users, local residents, and those traveling to the cancer centers for treatment.

ProCure is set for completion in August and will begin accepting patients about a year later. She said the retail component will likely include a cafe, a place to get coffee, perhaps a bookstore, and services such as a salon and dry cleaner in a lifestyle center setting.“ The cancer patients usually come in for eight to 12 weeks at a time and their treatment lasts between 10 and 15 minutes a day,” she said. “They’re here for the duration and they need something to do the rest of the time.”

For the office component, Davis Jordan said she is getting inquiries from a mix of medical tenants, as well as an assortment of companies looking to expand and grow. The developer is in talks with several hotels, but has not determined an operator yet.Construction on both projects is expected to begin in the next few months, and Bailey said they could see their first tenants by late this year or early 2009.

oh goody. Nothing I like better than more congestion. Especially right there by the hospital.

Sure glad we built that turnpike out in the middle of all those cow pastures to encourage more and more development miles from anywhere.

What really blows is a lot of this is class A office space, we all know we need all the Class A office space we can get downtown, not in a pasture.

Bailey said the Westlake project, just west of Brandon Place on Memorial Road, will be a Class A office complex with building sizes ranging from 10,000 square feet to 60,000 square feet with lease rates in the $18 to $20 range.

Let me guess. Office-houses?



“Memorial’s got a lot of density,” Murphy said.


ROFLMAO

It's a prudent move. Barry Murphy is actually right in his "density" comment because he's referring to office space. Not to mention there is a lot of $ and rooftops in that area, and more coming. I'm actually surprised it's taken this long to get adequate retail and hotel amenities in that area (although, the hotels are being built closer to May).

I'm about as big a fan of the hoffices that Bailey's company constructed on Classen Blvd. just north of NW Expressway and has planned for this Memorial Road project as I am of gated residential development like Gallardia. Both development concepts violate several basic urban design concepts, the most obvious being, isolating the user from the larger community. But if people want to live and work that way out on the fringes of our city, it's not something worth arguing about IMO . . . as long as they pay their own way. And that's still not happening.

At one time The City was reviewing the real costs of this kind of sprawling development and an associated schedule of impact fees. I'm not sure where that process ever got to . . . if it's ongoing or stalled out . . . I have no idea. But, I just had a look at The City's schedule of sewer and water impact fees and I don't see any indication that fringe commercial development comes close to paying the costs for the benefits it receives from connecting to City water, sanitary and drainage systems, electrical, gas and communication utilities, being served by adjacent transportation corridors and receiving City Fire and Police services.

On top of everything else, OG&E, SBC and Cox will install their new lines underground (as they should be) and connect to a system of above ground wire that runs alongside inner-city streets and through inner-city neighborhoods. If nothing else, every foot of buried utility outside the city’s core should be matched by an equal amount of above ground utility mitigation inside the core and those costs included in the proposed new development costs.

The fact is that OKC development regulations and associated costs are still in the firm grip of the development community, keeping development costs as low as possible and profits as high as possible. In the end though, it's the residents of inner-city neighborhoods along with the development’s users that pay these costs in rent or purchase prices and OKC boasts some of the lowest in the nation. This is good for business in some ways, but bad for OKCity's ability to provide appropriate levels of street and park maintenance and police and fire protection. Many, if not most, inner-city neighborhood contract with private security services to offset the lack of adequate police patrols and also pay a large portion of the costs to maintain their parks and other public spaces. The present fee system simply isn't fair in properly allocating the actual costs and benefits of new development out by Mercy Hospital or other fringe areas of our city.

Also, during Garner Stoll's tenure as Planning Director, a well reasoned and progressive development plan was drawn up for the Memorial Road corridor, but the plan has been repeatedly bastardized by the numerous variances granted since the initial development; the original Quail Springs Mall tract. The area on the south side of the turnpike and the east end of Memorial near I-235 are just pathetic examples of cheap commercial construction and scrape the bottom of the commercial design barrel. The state of OKC commercial design regulations and review process is an area that has a long way to go before OKC becomes a major league city in more ways than just home to an NFL basket ball team.