Does anyone know what is being done here? I was holding on to hope that someone was going to bulldoze the low rent apartments that have sat vacant and windowless for a while. Unfortunately, it looks like they are not only being re-opened but they are painting the historic brick gray.
There are a couple buildings across and to either side of these apartments and I had a Plaza-esque fantasy about what could be done with this space (walking distance to the Plaza- albeit across Penn) but this might be a littler farther west than developers are currently looking.
Anyways, if anyone has any information about what is going on here or any planned development in the area I would appreciate it.

Here are a couple pictures of the surrounding buildings:
1372013721

Ugh on painting that brick.

Those buildings were bought by an OKC investor last year and I assume they are being "fixed up" for rent.

This is the company that now owns them:

http://www.brownrentalhomes.com/

Brown only owns the 3 buildings to the west, the other is under separate ownership.

You can see they have replaced windows.

:(

Bummer, though I imagine the entire interiors will need to be gutted judging by how long those windows were shattered and exposed to the elements so they could be made fairly nice/new. I supposed anything is better than vacant parking lots and buildings with busted windows.
Appreciate it Pete, I had wondered why the windows had not been replaced on the fourth building.
Still can't wrap my head around painting over the 1920's brick that matches the historic homes in the surrounding neighborhoods (Miller, Crestwood, etc).

Especially since that brick looks to be in good shape and they are also painting over some nice contrasting details.

This is what happens when properties are located outside any sort of design review or historic preservation boundary, which basically is only east of Classen.

This actually makes less than zero sense.

I would be curious what type of financing these people are getting. Absent design standards, you're community is pretty much at the mercy of whatever a bank is willing to lend to.

That's an interesting little area. Back in the late 30s, it was a junction point for the streetcar system. The Linwood line ran out Linwood, curved to the north at Virginia, ran up Penn to NW 12, then out NW 12 to Drexel where it once again went north to NW 19, and out 19th to end-of-line a block west of Independence (the track continued on to merge with the belt line a few blocks to the south, but the cars stopped and derailers were in place to make sure they did). The University line used the same tracks until it got to Youngs, where it went north toward NW 23. However that track had already been abandoned when I first rode these rails back in 1938.

At that time, the building at the NW corner had a neighborhood grocery store on the ground floor and apartments upstairs.

Thanks for sharing Jim, that is interesting.
When I bought my home, I was told that this neighborhood was built to house the steel mill workers at the time.
Maybe someone will restore it to its former glory and it can get reconnected to the incoming street car system for its 100 year anniversary in 2030.

We can hope! Since I'll be 99 then, I seriously doubt that I'll see it happen, but you might.