Galleria Mall - Downtown

[Pete2]

Just curious - why was the proposed galleria mall downtown never built?

[Oil Capital]

Just curious - why was the proposed galleria mall downtown never built?

Short Answer: Oil Bust

[Jesseda]

sad but true, i thought a downtwon mall would have been great, maybe still a chance one would be great out there.. downtown shopping seems fun to me

[Watson410]

I think it would be cool to have an outdoor mall, east of the ballpark. Similar to what they tried to do a year or two ago... Honestly, just bulldozing those metal buildings would cool too.... Talk about an eyesore!!

[Steve]

It was far more than the oil bust. The entire concept was flawed from the start and the developer who was tasked with making it happen was really more interested in building office towers and in the end he admitted he unqualified to do a retail project. For what it's worth, we were very lucky the mall never got built: it would have almost certainly been a bust.

[Jesseda]

i think it would be nice to have a opened air shopping plaza or at least convert two or three downtown building that are side by side each other into something like 50 penn place.. I would love to shop in a downtown atmosphere. to bad the underground wants wider and and higher ceilings it would bea nice little mall

[OKCTalker]

That was a big bullet we dodged. A massive, failed downtown retail project would have diverted resources and attention from Bricktown, downtown and MAPS, and would have stalled (if not entirely killed) the eventual success of all three. It would have been akin to having another Skirvin around our necks, which by itself caused tremendous teeth-gnashing and conflict among business, civic and political leaders. I believe that we wouldn't be anywhere near the city we are today had this project moved forward.

[Jesseda]

so you are saying its good not to have retail center in downtown? even though a lot of building are turning into apartments and/or condos?

[Pete]

Remember, the Sheraton Century Center was an enclosed mall when it opened in the 70's... Complete with an FAO Schwartz toy store and a bunch of other retail tenants.

Failed miserably.

[OKCTalker]

Jesseda - I didn't say that at all. What I said was that if the Galleria retail complex would have been built when planned - in the early-1980's - it would have wreaked economic havoc in the CBD. But I will continue with two additional points relevant to today: 1. There is no current economic justification for multi-tenant retail in the CBD (new or rehab); and 2. Recent residential developments have had a mixed record of success, with apartments more highly-occupied than condominiums.

[Doug Loudenback]

It's NOT good not to have retail downtown. The proposed galleria was thought of as re-attracting suburban mall shoppers to downtown, not that it would have accomplished that. The old home-grown larger retailers (like Brown's, Rothschild's) right off the sidewalk are things of the past, as are the elegant single-screen movie houses. But, the old fussy, dirty, chaotic, have a great walk downtown ... that's what I miss. Could it return? Could a modern day Criterion come to be? Probably not, but, then, I would never have imagined Bricktown happening, either.

[Jesseda]

i moved here as a a kid in the 80's, i did not know they had a downtown mall with a fao schartz store ( which to me is the best toy store in the united states, cant believe we lost it or even had it here in okc) i just think it would be nice to have store onlong the streets of downtown, window shopping during christmas and stuff like that, i hope bricktown gets some more retail along the river, and some more named retaurants, i would love to seea pappadeux in bricktown alongthe canal and unique stores like bath junkie, basins, a oklahoma store everything made in oklahoma from salsa to quilts.

[Martin]

...a oklahoma store everything made in oklahoma from salsa to quilts.

well... there is red dirt emporium. -M

[Steve]

At this point, I think Urbanized is welcome to plug his store.....

[Jesseda]

i looked at the red idrt emporium web site, i might need to check there store out, i havent been to bricktown on the canal area in a couple years, so i might when it cools down go takea look around (hate the oklahoma heat)

[Urbanized]

well... there is red dirt emporium. -M

Thanks!

At this point, I think Urbanized is welcome to plug his store.....

Looks like you guys have it covered.

I will, however put up a link to the store's website, which has some two-year-old store photos and a smattering of our overall selection listed online. Stay tuned for lots more to appear before the holiday shopping season.

Oh, and you can follow us on Facebook, or on Twitter (@reddirtemporium).

Wait...were those plugs?

[mugofbeer]

Large-scale downtown retail has rarely been a success except in highly urbanized cities such as NYC or Chicago. You must have a VERY large population to support it, especially for those not living downtown and faced with the option of driving to a mall to Macy's or going downtown - most would just drive to the mall. I agree that, looking back, we should thank our lucky stars the downtown Galleria wasn't built. With fewer than 5000 people living in the CBD, the galleria wouldn't have been a success. As it is, nearly every major mall in the metro area is having problems.

[Pete]

In most cities that currently have much downtown retail, it's been there in various forms for a long and continuous time.

In the places where it left (like OKC) it's been very difficult to get it reestablished.

[Oil Capital]

Remember, the Sheraton Century Center was an enclosed mall when it opened in the 70's... Complete with an FAO Schwartz toy store and a bunch of other retail tenants.

Failed miserably.

Any source or verification for that FAO Schwartz [sic] factoid?

[Pete]

Here's an ad from November 1979 (with apologies for the previous misspelling):

[metro]

Large-scale downtown retail has rarely been a success except in highly urbanized cities such as NYC or Chicago. You must have a VERY large population to support it, especially for those not living downtown and faced with the option of driving to a mall to Macy's or going downtown - most would just drive to the mall. I agree that, looking back, we should thank our lucky stars the downtown Galleria wasn't built. With fewer than 5000 people living in the CBD, the galleria wouldn't have been a success. As it is, nearly every major mall in the metro area is having problems.

Not necessarily, Downtown Indy had (may still have) a pretty successful downtown mall. I think it's all in City Demographics as well. You have to think, it'd be the closest real mall to southside, considering Crossroads is no longer a real mall. If the retailer mix was right and promoted good, I still think we could have a successful mall downtown, although the likelihood of someone building one is almost nil.

[Steve]

xs

[mugofbeer]

It would have to be a benefactor with virutually bottomless pockets like the Bass Brothers of Ft. Worth to take it on themselves. Even prior to the economic collapse, I doubt anyone could have found lenders willing to take on the risk because - and you are correct - the demographics. I haven't been to Indy in many years, and I am sure there are exceptions. Even in Salt Lake City where they had two nice downtown retail centers, they quickly declined so retail moved to the new Crossroads Plaza which is just outside downtown SLC.

[bluedogok]

The San Antonio Rivercenter Mall is definitely struggling, and that was a few years ago before the current economic climate. Dillard's closed their store there in August of last year. That location had originally been a Joske's built originally in 1887, so it had been in Downtown San Antonio for over 100 years.

Indy's downtown mall was busy when I was up there but it was the Formula 1 race weekend, it would be interesting to see how busy the mall is on a normal weekend. Downtown retail is a tricky proposition to re-introduce, it has to be something different, more of a "destination" and not just a conventional mall placed downtown.

[mugofbeer]

San Antonio is killing the Riverwalk by letting it get dominated by the large national chains. When I was there a few years ago, it was nothing but Chili's and Dave & Busters. The mom & pop places that gave it ambiance were closing right and left mainly due to outlandish rents. SA needs to figure out some way to keep the walk affordable for local people to have their businesses there and not make it exclusive to only the national chains we can go to anywhere.