"Sense of place" finally taking root across downtown

[Spartan]

Pics from earlier this week..It was a frigid, windy day..temps in the teens, wind ripping through the streets. Some snow still on the ground from the 14 inches we got two weeks ago. Couldn't take being out in it longer than 30 minutes at a time..but I did manage to get some good pics, despite their generally not being many people out. OKC is really coming together, and there are some shots where you can see new urban districts coming together, others where you can see the potential for the future.


This terrace is full of people enjoying their Starbucks in the summer


Centennial Plaza in Lower Bricktown










I hate Lower Bricktown, by the way




I love Upper Bricktown, though






Bricktown Ballpark






A look down Flaming Lips Alley


Sheridan Avenue through Bricktown


Envy moving next to where Sammy's Pizza will be




The new digs for the London-affiliated Academy of Contemporary Music




New Bricktown Candy Shop (they also have a deli and coffee bar)








Isn't it beautiful, all that wasted potential..


Oil firm Harding & Shelton is renovating these buildings






Recently renovated office building and American Banjo Museum




On the other side of this underpass and across the impassable E.K. Gaylord is the convention district


Great row of buildings..I would say storefronts, but we know there are no stores here




Bricktown Brewery.. an OKC institution


People! They must be cold..






New chocolate and espresso bar ala CoCo Flow


This building was white..much better


This could almost be a cool street..if it weren't just a parking lot entrance


A very rapidly expanding company..Bricktown is important to their goal of recruiting young college grads.






A great place to eat in Deep Deuce








I love it when buildings with contemporary design merits build off of each other










Not anywhere near Bricktown












New Sage Gourmet Market & Deli..great place








About ready for move-ins




A mixed-use renovation










There at the end of the street is the old Calvary Baptist Church..Martin Luther King once applied for a job as their pastor but was turned down because he was "too old"..a church in Birmingham instead hired him and the rest is history.






Midtown OKC skyline


Harvey Ave in downtown




Former Federal Reserve bldg








Methodist Church was severely damaged by bombing








North Robinson Ave streetwall


Lights along North Broadway in Automobile Alley


Robinson Ave in downtown


Skyline from Midtown








Film Row streetscape work underway


Mixed-use renovation


Another mixed-use renovation


Great historic neon sign

[Spartan]

A glimpse at some of the in-tact old buildings that exist in the no man's land beyond Classen Blvd


Skyline view from Classen..love it


The old Fred Jones Auto Factory is going to become the new OCU Law School


One of my favorite old buildings in OKC




The Chicago style floor-to-ceiling minipaned windows are awesome..hope they keep those






Did I mention I like this skyline view a lot?














New home furnishings place




Dramatic facade




First floor--IAO Gallery, second floor-5 lofts




Work it


Actual storefronts along Walker Ave in the Arts District




Hudson Ave in Arts District




Downtown Library


Arts District density..buildings with some serious potential






Developer recently bought up this whole block


City Hall + OKC Museum of Art






City Hall


Downtown Library + City Hall


Devon Tower construction behind the library


Park Ave in downtown


Plaza Court bldg (old) + Leadership Square (new)


The old Skirvin Hotel..now a Hilton


Breathtaking




And a fitting end to this post, as Broadway unceremoniously dead-ends in front of the Cox Convention Center

I've posted this on several other sites..SkyscraperCity, eOmaha, KCRag..I might post it on a few others. It'll be interesting to see the feedback. I do these sort of photo overloads to help out of towners get a true experience of what OKC is like.

[Larry OKC]

Spartn, Thanks for all the pics!

[Doug Loudenback]

Nick, are those all the pics that you took? Those are perhaps the most comprehensive single set of downtown pics that I've seen, and I congratulate you for doing what you did and surviving the cold cold temps. Did you get a new camera for Christmas? Well done. Stay warm in Calgary (if that's where you are going).

Great job, Nick.

[gmwise]

Well Done Spartan.
I'm jealous of those living in Bricktown.

[Midtowner]

Nick, that "Methodist Church" is St. Joseph's Old Cathedral, a Catholic Church.

[PennyQuilts]

Thanks! That was tons of fun - great job.

[buckt]

Wow! Thanks for the amount of time/effort you put into the pics and posting the pics!

[betts]

Great pictures. Thanks. Another comment I'd like to make is that if the weather had been warmer you would have seen many of these sites filled with people. It's amazing how much busier Bricktown and lower Bricktown are now than a couple of years ago. And it is great to see people dining outside on the balmier days. The more sidewalk dining options the better, IMO, although not in this weather.

[Pete]

Awesome job -- thanks for posting.

There were several buildings/businesses I had not seen previously.

Greatly illustrates how much incredible yet unrealized potential there is in central OKC.

[wsucougz]

Sweet pics, Spartan.

I have been driving around quite a bit out on main and sheridan over by the Fred Jones, where you took some of the shots. There is a bit of potential over there. Main is relatively unspoiled all the way down to Penn.

Also, I love that private residence over in Deep Deuce. It is going to be incredible.

[BG918]

I've always thought it would be cool to see another cultural attraction on this parking lot in between two existing buildings on Colcord Drive across from the OKCMOA. Something like the Intl. Photography Hall of Fame would be nice fit.


Great pics. I personally really love how the area along Central between 1st and 4th has developed in Deep Deuce. Are there any plans for the Deep Deuce apts. to build any new buildings on the various vacant lots in that area? There's one on 1st, a few on 2nd, and several on 3rd that break the continous 'wall' of buildings and would be good infill for this growing neighborhood. Maybe more smaller developments like Central Ave. Villas will fill in those lots.

[westsidesooner]

Nick, are those all the pics that you took? Those are perhaps the most comprehensive single set of downtown pics that I've seen, and I congratulate you for doing what you did and surviving the cold cold temps. Did you get a new camera for Christmas? Well done. Stay warm in Calgary (if that's where you are going).

Great job, Nick.

Ditto...those are some of the best pics I've seen of the downtown area.


Can't wait to see what it'll look like in 5 more years.

[MikeOKC]

Wow, Nick. Great job! I looked at the EXIF info on a couple of your pictures to see what camera you were using and I'm blown away you got those pix out of a Kodak EasyShare M1063 point & shoot. This is not the first time I have been impressed with that very camera. It got some not so great reviews when it first came out and then I started reading some incrediby positive reviews and now I see these pictures. (I might get one!)

You did a great job with this set, Nick. Truly a great snapshot in time of our city.

[rcjunkie]

Sweet pics, Spartan.

I have been driving around quite a bit out on main and sheridan over by the Fred Jones, where you took some of the shots. There is a bit of potential over there. Main is relatively unspoiled all the way down to Penn.

Also, I love that private residence over in Deep Deuce. It is going to be incredible.

I agree, this area should be in line for renovation, not only this area, but the area bordered by Westen--Penn, from Main to Linwood or maybe as far N. as 10th has loads of potential.

[Spartan]

Thanks for the comments on here, and esp to Doug/lasomeday who commented on the blog. To answer a few questions/comments...

Cougz, you're right. Look at like this, in the 80's, there were the dreamers like Neil Horton who told people they saw downtown some day stretching from Lincoln to Penn. Well it stretches to Lincoln today, and possibly past it, but Penn, not so much. Nobody ever saw any kind of potential, not even Neil Horton, in the area south of I-40.

BG918, unfortunately we already lost IPHOF. They moved to St. Louis because our inept city leaders couldn't find a place in downtown for them. Also OCURA has defaulted (or will) with the developers of the Deep Deuce Apartments and that land will probably be rebidded on. Some of that land a lot of people have wanted a grocery store to go on, I guess so we can put Sage out of business.

Mike, I wouldn't recommend that camera. I believe you can pretty much get any good day picture out of any kind of camera, it's more or less going to depend on the guy pressing the button and his willingness to go stand out in awkward places to get the picture (i.e. middle of intersection while light is red). But when it comes to night pictures, I tried some, but I just gave up. One tip is that for a lot of these I stayed in my car, rolled down the window a little bit and used the window edge as a substitute for a tripod lol.

I have a rebel and a real tripod somewhere, I believe it's in Calgary, but I have not been able to find it since I took a few hundred shots in the Beltline in Calgary..shots that have been lost along with the camera unfortunately.

As far as comments on other sites go, nothing yet on KCRag, the typical jeaous idiotic responses on eOmaha, but there have been some interesting ones on SSC. One person particularly liked the shots of the Brownstones, someone else suggested (without even knowing) that a Portland-style streetcar would go over huge in our city, and someone else suggested that OKC is a great unique blend of old and new. I can't agree more.

[MikeOKC]

Thanks for the comments on here, and esp to Doug/lasomeday who commented on the blog. To answer a few questions/comments...

Cougz, you're right. Look at like this, in the 80's, there were the dreamers like Neil Horton who told people they saw downtown some day stretching from Lincoln to Penn. Well it stretches to Lincoln today, and possibly past it, but Penn, not so much. Nobody ever saw any kind of potential, not even Neil Horton, in the area south of I-40.

BG918, unfortunately we already lost IPHOF. They moved to St. Louis because our inept city leaders couldn't find a place in downtown for them. Also OCURA has defaulted (or will) with the developers of the Deep Deuce Apartments and that land will probably be rebidded on. Some of that land a lot of people have wanted a grocery store to go on, I guess so we can put Sage out of business.

Mike, I wouldn't recommend that camera. I believe you can pretty much get any good day picture out of any kind of camera, it's more or less going to depend on the guy pressing the button and his willingness to go stand out in awkward places to get the picture (i.e. middle of intersection while light is red). But when it comes to night pictures, I tried some, but I just gave up. One tip is that for a lot of these I stayed in my car, rolled down the window a little bit and used the window edge as a substitute for a tripod lol.

I have a rebel and a real tripod somewhere, I believe it's in Calgary, but I have not been able to find it since I took a few hundred shots in the Beltline in Calgary..shots that have been lost along with the camera unfortunately.

As far as comments on other sites go, nothing yet on KCRag, the typical jeaous idiotic responses on eOmaha, but there have been some interesting ones on SSC. One person particularly liked the shots of the Brownstones, someone else suggested (without even knowing) that a Portland-style streetcar would go over huge in our city, and someone else suggested that OKC is a great unique blend of old and new. I can't agree more.

The photographer did a great job, that's for sure. It says something that you would do that on days like we've been having.

I don't comment as often as I should on your blog. I read it on my RSS reader and rarely actually hit the site. I mean to sometimes and then just forget.

When do you go back to Calgary? Would you be up for a cup of coffee or whatever? My wife says I need to spend more time on "things I love" this year. I travel between cities as well (in St. Louis right now), and will be in OKC on Monday and be there for a couple of weeks.

Again, great job!

[ronronnie1]

Excellent pics, Spartan!!! Thanks for braving the cold to snap pics for us! Much appreciated.

So much untapped potential in some of these old buildings. Personally, I see a lot of potential just west of downtown around Classen. Film Row I guess it's called? All the old brick buildings - this needs to be renovated and used. When it gets warmer, I'm gonna take my camera and snap pics of Lincoln Terrace. I love old beautiful houses/neighborhoods in the city center as well as the old office buildings.

[betts]

Envy moving frees up all that space at the Santa Fe depot. Will it be sold to the city?

[Spartan]

(To avoid looking rude, just wanted to mention I'm not ignoring Mike lol..we just moved it to a PM chat)

Thanks ronnie. Lincoln is another cool area. The whole inner city really is pretty cool, so much potential everywhere. It's going to be incredible to see this city take off once the economy improves at the same time as streetcar comes in.

Betts, there's not any plan to act esp considering ACOG still hasn't come up with their recommendations for the multi-modal transit center, and even then, they may keep retail in the train docks. I believe the plan is to put restaurants in that space, but which, I don't know. I do know that Camille's Sidewalk Cafe was looking at that space about two years ago, but I think they pretty much halted expansion. And they're Tulsa-based, keep in mind.

[Decious]

Awesome pics Sparty!

That furniture store may get another sale tomorrow thanks to you. I'd never heard of it and now my girl is determined to pay a visit this weekend. She never disappoints...if you know what I mean. She's a buyer.

I'd love it if our online community could organize more outings that could maybe help some of these small businesses through these hard times. I make sure that when I'm in town I hit up Sage and the Wedge. My girl loves the Italian eatery in the Montgomery as well. Hell, I'd even go to a scavenger hunt or something. Lol!

Thanks again Nick. This spread really makes me wish that I didn't travel as much. I'd love to know the DT area in a more intimate way. All things in time.

Gino

P.S. With such a great building stock and with the plethora of infill opportunities, why is the chamber wanting to build a football shaped building in the middle of a field? Not wanting to derail the thread, but really CoC.... Really? That was the best idea?

[Spartan]

Thanks gino. Btw, don't count me on this, but I think the furnishings store was Raffines Furnishings? It was mostly contemporary stuff, very cool, but I didn't actually go in. I know another contemporary home decor store has recently opened up on NW 9th next to Iguana Mexican Grill, behind Java Dave's on 10th.

Well what happened with the CoC site was that the NW 4th and Broadway site, along with the Community Foundation site at NW 10th and Broad, have long been regarded as the best open real estate in downtown. So the idea is to donate it to community-based organizations.

Nevermind that it's a horrible idea to put our community-based organizations on sites that command major development, but to hell with seeing "big picture" type things. I've said before though that the chamber did the best proposal that the city would have let them do on that site.

[kbsooner]

"photobucket bandwidth exceeded"! help, I really want to see these...

[OKCisOK4me]

Nice shots Nick! I still like your avatar though... (I left you a message on your actual profile page on here but I don't think you ever noticed it).

[Bunty]

I can't see them, either. Instead,it says "Upgrade to Pro today. Bandwidth exceeded."