Quarterly Tours | Oklahoma City Foundation for Architecture (http://www.okcarchitecture.com/quarterly-tours/)

Sunday Stroll on Broadway

Join the Oklahoma City Foundation for Architecture for a Sunday Stroll on Broadway on Sunday, October 26th from 1:30 – 3:00 p.m.

Massive, bulky, straightforward. Early automobile showrooms are in all downtowns. It was a new building type to service a new type of merchandise that could be purchased right on Main Street. Automobile Alley was home to 52 of the first 76 dealerships in Oklahoma City. These steel-reinforced, poured-in-place structures feature interior auto ramps, auto elevators, and rooftop parking. The district includes a number of "holes"-those surface parking lots originally used for new and used car sales. It is not your typical commercial Main Street district.

This tour will not only take you on a nostalgic trip of the models of yesteryear but it also will show what new uses are possible for these dealerships. Projects will include office conversions, light industries, lofts, dance studios, non-profit organizations, restaurants, and retail as well as automotive related businesses. Indoor first floor parking that converts to major party space keeps large showrooms just as they were! Many of these projects qualified for the investment tax credits, making for bumper to bumper great deals for the owners!

Catherine Montgomery, AIA of Preservation and Design Studio and Ron Frantz, AIA of the University of Oklahoma, College of Architecture will lead a tour along Automobile Alley.

Cost: $5 for OKC Foundation for Architecture Members / $10 for nonmembers

Click link above to register!

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FWIW Ron Frantz was the Oklahoma Main Street Program Architect with the Oklahoma Department of Commerce during the bombing recovery and early stages of Automibile Alley's program status as a Main Street community. He also for a time essentially served as an ex officio board member of Automobile Alley during this period, and provided a number of the design grants (architectural drawings) that AAMSP received during that period. He has intimate knowledge of the district and its history and architecture.

After that he also served as a dean in the college of building arts at the Savannah (GA) College of Art and Design (SCAD).

To to it off, he is incredibly funny, engaging and a great story teller. Ron's portion alone is worth the price of admission.