Bricktown change in attitude?

[ljbab728]

http://newsok.com/brokers-say-era-of...ad_story_title

[mcca7596]

Hopefully all the property squatters will realize that their asking prices are unrealistic.

[Thunder]

While we are on the topic of Bricktown...

I have always wondered about this for years...

Bricktown a named district in OKC or an actual town on its own?

[dankrutka]

It's a town on it's own. The mayor is the bouncer at Rok Bar and city hall is Tapwerks...






J/k, Thunder. It's a district.

[UnFrSaKn]

Just noticed the date is from 2003... oh well.

[Pete]

There has been some progress, such as ACM @ UCO taking the upper floors (and buying) the one large building.

I'm hoping that once the Deep Deuce projects are relatively complete and full that it will spur some of the owners to rework the upper floors of many of those buildings into offices and living units.

[betts]

I'm excited about development of the Sherman Iron Works too. I just wonder why there was no fanfare about the development. Is there concern that this is another planned development that won't ever happen? Main Street would be a great place for a string of retail and the Sherman Iron Works is a great building.

[UnFrSaKn]

Here's a Google Street View link for those who might not know where it is.

[G.Walker]

I'm excited about development of the Sherman Iron Works too. I just wonder why there was no fanfare about the development. Is there concern that this is another planned development that won't ever happen? Main Street would be a great place for a string of retail and the Sherman Iron Works is a great building.

I think this announcement of the "The Factory" is old news, if you read the caption under to picture its starts by stating Oklahoma City August, 13, 2003. Someone please clarify, again, its hard to get actual facts straight is certain articles...

[UnFrSaKn]

Check this out... some old photos of Bricktown. I don't remember the Rock Island Freight Station. I literally don't have any memory of it from when these pictures were taken. I didn't have any interest in such things then. There's also a lot of photos of the Sherman Iron Works building.

[Just the facts]

I think this announcement of the "The Factory" is old news, if you read the caption under to picture its starts by stating Oklahoma City August, 13, 2003. Someone please clarify, again, its hard to get actual facts straight is certain articles...

The Factory died a long time ago. This is old old old news.

[betts]

I think this announcement of the "The Factory" is old news, if you read the caption under to picture its starts by stating Oklahoma City August, 13, 2003. Someone please clarify, again, its hard to get actual facts straight is certain articles...

Ah, didn't notice the date on that caption. So it IS another one of the plans that never came to fruition. That's sad, because it's a great building. Everytime I walk by I think about what a shame it is that it hasn't been developed.

[warreng88]

Check this out... some old photos of Bricktown. I don't remember the Rock Island Freight Station. I literally don't have any memory of it from when these pictures were taken. I didn't have any interest in such things then. There's also a lot of photos of the Sherman Iron Works building.

If I remember correctly, that was where the current police station is on Main between Walnut and Stills.

[Steve]

What you're seeing is a very old and incorrect cutline on the Sherman Iron Works photos and is the result of cutting too many people and thinking a damn computer can take up the slack. Notice in print the cutline is fine. But the computers think they're smarter than the humans, and somehow it picked up the original cutline for this archive photo (fresh photos are not taken in such instances because ...)
Forgive me for ranting.... but geez..... asking for a fix now.

[metro]

Long long overdue article but good. Hope this issue gets more media attention or nothing will change

[Just the facts]

Remember about 6 months ago when one of our OKCTalk family members mentioned the impending demise of Bricktown as competitor neighborhoods start getting established, and every one ripped him a new one. Bricktown has maybe 12 months left to get their act together or what you see in Bricktown now is all you will ever see in Bricktown. And by ‘get their act together’ I mean they better find a way to introduce residential, destination retail, and start rethinking Lower Bricktown (although L.B. might already be too messed up to save).

Deep Deuce is about one or two projects away from providing enough amenities that people living there won't have much reason to leave Deep Deuce, and if they do venture out, it will be to AA and Midtown. Being the only fish in the pond is great until 3 more fish show up.

[Larry OKC]

Check this out... some old photos of Bricktown. I don't remember the Rock Island Freight Station. I literally don't have any memory of it from when these pictures were taken. I didn't have any interest in such things then. There's also a lot of photos of the Sherman Iron Works building.

Great pics...thanks for sharing...LOVE buildings with "character' and that Blue Door pic is swimming in it!

[metro]

Remember about 6 months ago when one of our OKCTalk family members mentioned the impending demise of Bricktown as competitor neighborhoods start getting established, and every one ripped him a new one. Bricktown has maybe 12 months left to get their act together or what you see in Bricktown now is all you will ever see in Bricktown. And by ‘get their act together’ I mean they better find a way to introduce residential, destination retail, and start rethinking Lower Bricktown (although L.B. might already be too messed up to save).

Deep Deuce is about one or two projects away from providing enough amenities that people living there won't have much reason to leave Deep Deuce, and if they do venture out, it will be to AA and Midtown. Being the only fish in the pond is great until 3 more fish show up.

Here here, this site definitely has favoritism depending on the poster. Bricktown appears to be willingly choosing the path of West End, and to no surprise. OKC rarely choses to learn from history

[Spartan]

Remember about 6 months ago when one of our OKCTalk family members mentioned the impending demise of Bricktown as competitor neighborhoods start getting established, and every one ripped him a new one. Bricktown has maybe 12 months left to get their act together or what you see in Bricktown now is all you will ever see in Bricktown. And by ‘get their act together’ I mean they better find a way to introduce residential, destination retail, and start rethinking Lower Bricktown (although L.B. might already be too messed up to save).

Deep Deuce is about one or two projects away from providing enough amenities that people living there won't have much reason to leave Deep Deuce, and if they do venture out, it will be to AA and Midtown. Being the only fish in the pond is great until 3 more fish show up.

I am kinda on the fence with this one. I could easily see either side, honestly. You might not be wrong, but I hope you are. None of us want to see this happen to Bricktown. I also hate to accuse leadership of being piss poor. But there has to be something you can do about this squatting. I haven't even seen them try.

We're going to have to wait and see what Bricktown leadership really means depending on how they handle this House of Bedlam joke of a proposal. We've all been expecting leadership to come from the Bricktown Association, but that's nuts, it's just a neighborhood association. Leadership must come from the city and from the Bricktown Urban Design Commission. Avis chairs it, and she also owns the Rock Island Plow Building. That group can also decide what happens with the grassy knoll. The likelihood that a worthy development goes there if they deny the current proposal is obviously infinitely higher than if they approve the current proposal...

[mcca7596]

I don't think that Bricktown will ever lose its appeal to people from small town Oklahoma and the suburbs simply because it's mostly all they know and has been their main experience with urban design in Oklahoma. I think Bricktown will continue to thrive as a purely entertainment district, but might not ever become the urban neighborhood we all hoped it would 10 years ago. As others have pointed out too, it really doesn't do much for locals anymore.

[betts]

I don't think that Bricktown will ever lose its appeal to people from small town Oklahoma and the suburbs simply because it's mostly all they know and has been their main experience with urban design in Oklahoma. I think Bricktown will continue to thrive as a purely entertainment district, but might not ever become the urban neighborhood we all hoped it would 10 years ago. As others have pointed out too, it really doesn't do much for locals anymore.

On the other hand, I spent happy hour last Friday at Norm's Dockside with a bunch of friends who live around downtown. We rotate where we eat, to include Bricktown as well as the other areas such as Deep Deuce, Automobile Alley, Film Row and Midtown. Before Thunder games Bricktown is hopping, as well as on Friday and Saturday nights.

[mcca7596]

good to know!

[ljbab728]

Before Thunder games Bricktown is hopping, as well as on Friday and Saturday nights.

That's why equating Bricktown to places like the West End in Dallas fails. The West End was basically dependant on itself to attract crowds.

[Doug Loudenback]

My 2 cents:

Although comparisons can be made to other cities, I think that Bricktown is rather unique in the comparison process and I don't think that those comparisons are at all useful to our own analysis in the main. Oklahoma City is not a megalopolis like Dallas and probably never will be and comparisons to Dallas' west end are meaningless (other than to learn from its mistakes).

Closer to home/comparison, we are not like Ft. Worth which has essentially re-created a downtown entertainment district, complete with false historic fronts, to newly create an entertainment area similar, but less historically authentic as far as buildings are concerned, to Bricktown. That said, the Ft.Worth area has much greater walkability than our own Bricktown, and perhaps lessons can be learned from Ft. Worth ... not to mention that a fine transportation hub exists on the east side of downtown which can take passengers to a lot of different places, including an Amtrak train to/from Oklahoma City.

We are not like San Antonio which, unlike Oklahoma City, did not have ever so much of its historic downtown destroyed in an ill-fated massive urban renewal concept/city project. San Antonio has preserved, unintentionally or not, its old dilapidated downtown stuff and that old dilapidated downtown stuff is seeing an excellent renaissance today, if my visit there in July 2011 serves to demonstrate. Old San Antonio downtown dilapidated stuff is increasingly becoming part of San Antonio's downtown charm. Alas, in Oklahoma City, we have pretty much destroyed our "old stuff" in the CBD whereat the same kinds of things could have occurred here and, more, we don't seem to have a particularly high priority on preserving what little of the old CBD stuff that remains. More and more, our CBD is strictly modern business buildings with a few parks, hotels, and restaurants thrown in, but it is decidedly NOT historic or charming and is NOT entertainment in its focus and it is absolutely NOT concerned about old stuff, if recent activities are the measure. For those who are nostalgic, like me, it's probably best that we let go of the notion that Oklahoma City's CBD can ever be "charming" again ... the potential for that opportunity has come and it has gone. Almost everything in the city's CBD that could be dubbed as charming and revitalized is long gone, and very much so. The SandRidge Commons project placed a punctuation mark on the end of charm in Okc's CBD.

If one hankers for old stuff in downtown Oklahoma City, one either has to look at old photos and history books or one has to cross the BNSF RR tracks and go into Bricktown, pretty much the singular focus for entertainment in the central city, pretty much the CBD area that has been fairly preserved, and no other destination alternatives for those purposes seriously exist ... and I don't at all mean to detract from the very nice developments along Auto Alley, Film Row, and Midtown which have strong elements of entertainment and historical preservation or to say that those developments are not really neat. They are. But I think that anyone would be hard pressed to say that the CBD has any serious entertainment and historical preservation destination area other than Bricktown.

Bricktown, as we are all aware, has had its growing pains but what else could be reasonably expected? Any economic area would. It has had plenty of investors who caught the vision of what Bricktown could be but who weren't interested in participating in the development process but who were instead more interested in flipping their acquired properties to other buyers who actually did have an interest in physical development, if the price was right. Those people were/are not interested in the city, they were/are interested in their own pocketbooks. On the other hand, what city doesn't have its share of capitalists who have less interest on being "enlightened" capitalists than in just turning a quick buck. I doubt that our city is unique in having such non-productive capitalists. People who are prone to greed just exist, and they exist everywhere.

Notwithstanding, Bricktown has hung on, has grown and developed, and has become the single greatest destination for entertainment in the city. Enough business interests exist in the existing Bricktown businesses to make it so. And, in my estimation, it is getting better all the time.

Sure, I'd like to see more ... more movie venues, more retail, more of everything fun and entertaining, and sure, I'd like to see those who are solely interested in flipping a property for a profit who don't have an ounce of civic interest in development get a short shrift, but I doubt that they are losing any sleep over it since they don't really give a care about their non-contribution to the city's development. And, don't forget that, relatively speaking, Bricktown is still a baby in its longevity. For a baby, it is a heck of a place.

So, naysayers, keep naysaying and that may well help the future course of Bricktown. But don't lose sight and perspective of all that has been accomplished and the fabulous prospect, I think, of that which is yet to come.

[Steve]

Remember about 6 months ago when one of our OKCTalk family members mentioned the impending demise of Bricktown as competitor neighborhoods start getting established, and every one ripped him a new one. Bricktown has maybe 12 months left to get their act together or what you see in Bricktown now is all you will ever see in Bricktown. And by ‘get their act together’ I mean they better find a way to introduce residential, destination retail, and start rethinking Lower Bricktown (although L.B. might already be too messed up to save).

Deep Deuce is about one or two projects away from providing enough amenities that people living there won't have much reason to leave Deep Deuce, and if they do venture out, it will be to AA and Midtown. Being the only fish in the pond is great until 3 more fish show up.

In 12 months we'll be seeing a new hotel being built in Bricktown, and likely, the conversion of upper floors of some of the warehouses into housing. I'll make a bet real quick that Bricktown will be as busy on Friday nights in one year as it was last night.