Ballpark condo's, 5 star hotel plans still on!
Condos at ballpark still in lineup
5-star hotel, more parking also studied, RedHawks owners say
By Bob Hersom
Staff Writer
Condominiums and more still are a possibility at AT&T Bricktown Ballpark.
RedHawks and Blazers owner Bob Funk told The Oklahoman two summers ago he might have condos built above the right field fence at The Brick.
Those plans remain possibilities today, even though several more housing units have been put on the Bricktown map since the summer of 2005.
"We think that we can offer, hopefully in the near future, some good retail, lifestyle type of development that will benefit all of Bricktown,” Scott Pruitt, the RedHawks' minority owner and managing general partner said Tuesday.
There might be condos and a parking garage and the fanciest hotel in Oklahoma in the ballpark's future.
"There's a lot of (housing) units that are coming online (in Bricktown),” Pruitt said, "but there's always a place for a different type of unit.
"If you've got a residential offering that allows you to overlook a ballpark, maybe to be a part of a 5-star hotel concept — a Ritz-Carlton, hypothetically — they could build a hotel there and put private residences at the top. So you'd have 5-star service along with a view that you couldn't find anywhere else.”
Pruitt pointed out that there isn't a 5-star hotel in Oklahoma.
"Is there a place here for a 5-star concept? Maybe,” Pruitt said. "We're looking at that market analysis to make that determination. We can't say that it's going to happen. But are we dreaming about it? Yeah.
"Are we putting it up on the board and saying this is something that's do-able? We're looking at it and analyzing it now.”
Pruitt said any such development would increase, not decrease, parking in Bricktown. The team has approximately 100 parking spaces outside the right field fence and 550 more spaces east of the ballpark. If any development covers those areas, parking garages would more than make up the difference.
"Anything we would do would at least triple the parking spaces available for the public,” Pruitt said. "We believe that anything we do in future development, parking is key.”
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