Kd's Restaurant / Legacy Grill

[betts]

At the time lower Bricktown was started, clearly the city was happy to have anything there. Times have changed, and city planning needs to change with it. We are seeing a resurgence in activity in downtown and surrounds, and it is now becoming a seller's market. The city needs to value its property more and be more discriminating about what is built where. I think lower Bricktown could use a parking garage, and perhaps better use can be made of some of that surface parking.

And while I agree that there is a dilutional effect due to simultaneous development of other areas near downtown, that sort of thing is not surprising and not easily subject to control, given the fact that most of it is private development and acceptable urban architecture or renewal.

[Spartan]

How have we diluted downtown development?

I can't believe this thing about too much supply is gaining traction.

[Rover]

The fact is that there are LOTS of development opportunities and LOTS of vacant spaces. That is the excess supply. What we are trying to do is drive up demand which will eventually meet or exceed supply. Then we will see more valuable and taller structures, less wasted space, and higher priced buildings....more density that we all want.

I also think lower BT will be marginally valuable until the future of the cotton mill is known. That too is a game changer property because of its size and location.

[Rover]

Rover... Your posts are seeping with venom more than usual these days. Kerry is a little crazy but there is a lot of truth to what killed downtowns everywhere.

But did you just say way more supply than demand? What universe are you on? Also I'm not sure what this has to do with LB...

Btw, sorry for unintended venom....not intended. I agree with a lot of what he says. I'm just less rigid and, IMHO, more pragmatic.

[Spartan]

The fact is that there are LOTS of development opportunities and LOTS of vacant spaces. That is the excess supply. What we are trying to do is drive up demand which will eventually meet or exceed supply. Then we will see more valuable and taller structures, less wasted space, and higher priced buildings....more density that we all want.

I also think lower BT will be marginally valuable until the future of the cotton mill is known. That too is a game changer property because of its size and location.

Can't disagree here. I think some of you would be surprised at how land speculation costs have driven up in the last 5 years though... Of course land spec really sucks.

[Urbanized]

Red: Current buildings
Blue: Future buildings

1. 4 story mixed use. First floor retail/restaurant. Floors 2-4 office.
2. 8 story hotel
3. 2 story mixed use. Ground floor retail, top floor office. (see Auto Alley)
4. 5 story mixed use. Ground floor retail/restaurant/office. Floors 2-5 Residential or office. Approx 25,000 sq. feet ground floor.
5. 5 story mixed use. Large ground floor restaurant space. Floors 2-5 Residental.
6. 4 story mixed use. Large ground floor restaurant or retail space. Office above.
7. 5 story mixed use. Restaurant/retail ground floor. Residential above.
8. Parking garage with ground floor retail and restaurant.
9. 4 story mixed use. Ground floor restaurant/retail. Top floors office.
10. 10 story residential tower. Ground floor grocery space/retail.

That was just about a 30 minute sketch. I'm sure the creative minds at okctalk could improve that drastically. Obviously, probably would not happen anytime soon. But even with the planning failures, it can still be corrected without demolition (would be easier to just demo everything and start over though, not cost efficient though).

Very similar to what I have suggested for years, with a few interesting wrinkles I had not considered. To respond to Pete's earlier post that said only one pad site left, LB is done, I say that is only if you accept that the original use plan is the right plan. I think with the benefit of hindsight most would agree that more density in LB would be desirable. If you introduce structured parking you open up broad swaths of land currently used as parking (some canal-front!!) as NEW pads. The limits on development are only imposed by a 15-year-old plan that many now feel (and some felt all along) is too suburban in nature from a land use standpoint.

I think that the pressure on OCURA/Hogan to build the best possible structure for the KD restaurant is fine, and even appropriate, but I think a much more important effort would be for OCURA and others to work with Randy to amend the original development plan and make better use of the REST of that property.

[catch22]

I'd also like to see a pedestrian mall from Reno south through where you have the building labeled "1". Transecting pedestrian access along the canal is key.

Yes pedestrian egress was a challenge in this due to the location of existing buildings (Sonic, etc.). Do you mean leave that space empty but turned into a public pedestrian space or leave the building but create a pedestrian corridor through the bottom floor?

[shawnw]

My friend and I just about LOL'ed...which would have been a mistake because we quickly realized, she was serious. The irony is, neither of us arrived in AA by car. Both of us walked and met at the Slingers.

I was wondering if this story would make "the talk". :-)

I like your version of it better than mine. Maybe we just need to have some "re-education" sessions with her, bring her around to the better way of thinking with regard to parking...

[shawnw]

So, is the official southern boundary of lower bricktown? Where is the dividing line with the boathouse district? Will it be the boulevard? I ask because I interpreted Steve's article as referring to Hogan building south of the boulevard eventually...

[Pete]

Can we get OCURA to cede Lower BT to either catch22 or Sid???

Both plans are excellent and represent how the area can grow in the future and do it right.


Unfortunately, Randy Hogan will merely slap up one last single-story, plain-Jane restaurant pad and call it good, with tons of money in his pocket and leaving OKC a massive missed opportunity.

[Spartan]

Not sure if that image works, if not, here is the link:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/1...72911130443330


Bascially, blue is new retail. Notice next to Harkins we need to fill that void on the west side of that new pedestrian walkway headed south. Ramp stays. Everything else is just ideas for new retail. The green is a new plaza space that will compliment Toby Keith's place and Kevin Durant's. If I was king, I'd theme the plaza after the "stars" of Oklahoma. Even try to see if we could get more retail in that space branded the same way. So it would be a major tourist destination.

The large red square is a new, major parking structure. The route south from there could be easily redone as the that intersection is essentially a 3-way. Right now it just feeds into the hotel but there already is an entrance for it. So I'd redo that intersection to make the pedestrian plaza start just to the north of it so that people feel like parking in the structure is an easy walk. No light jumping or anything like that. Signals prioritized for pedestrians with significant crossing times. I'd even prefer to see it as an "all-way" crossing for pedestrians, just like Mickey Mantle and Reno needs to be.

So the brown color is basically pedestrian space.

Make sense?

I don't see why the Alliance couldn't just do another big garage deal in conjunction to finding a redeveloped for the garbage heap that is LB.

[LandRunOkie]

The fact is that there are LOTS of development opportunities and LOTS of vacant spaces. That is the excess supply. What we are trying to do is drive up demand which will eventually meet or exceed supply. Then we will see more valuable and taller structures, less wasted space, and higher priced buildings....more density that we all want.

Bricktown was created to be an "entertainment district" and it will probably always be that. I would like to see the new building be two stories just so the profit-taking by Hogan isn't so one-sided. But I would never live in a tourist trap district and have to believe few reasonable people would.

[Just the facts]

Bricktown was created to be an "entertainment district" and it will probably always be that.

The problem is that 'entertainment districts' aren't sustainable. Bricktown either needs to evolve or die.

[mgsports]

National Retail would be good like maybe a NBA Store next to his Restaurant.

[Steve]

The problem is that 'entertainment districts' aren't sustainable. Bricktown either needs to evolve or die.

Say what? (this will be a shock to folks in several decades-old entertainment districts across the country)

[BoulderSooner]

The problem is that 'entertainment districts' aren't sustainable. Bricktown either needs to evolve or die.

actually they are ..

[BoulderSooner]

steve is tweeting that the OCURA board is not happy with the way the building interacts with the parking lots instead of the canal

[Pete]

Hooray! Let's see where this leads.


Remember that OCURA has been completely restructured of late, with Joe Van Bullard demoted, Cathy O'Connor more or less over-seeing it and Larry Nichols as the chairman.

This is one of their first opportunities as newbies to assert themselves and demand more.

[Larry OKC]

...At this point, as Pete has already said, Hogan's work is almost finished. I don't see Lower Bricktown changing much. But this needs to be ammo for any future public investment projects where any notion of urbanism is rested upon. No crystal ball here obviously but there are cities like Minneapolis, Omaha, and others that are emerging competitors and if they get it better than we do, this investment wont return as envisioned.

I agree but I can hear them now: "What are you talking about? What has been developed there has been a great success. We need more of the same"

[Pete]

Once the boulevard is in place, the light will shine even more brightly on LBT to the point it will look even worse.

The biggest problem with this development (apart from the developer himself) was there was no real design oversight other than by a very weak OCURA. Hogan's plans have always been outside the purview of the big three design review committees: Bricktown, Downtown and Urban.

[G.Walker]

All Randy has to do is have it redesigned as a fake two story building, he can design it to have really high ceilings, and make it look like a two story building, when it really is not, and have it pushed more to the canal, which he will probably do, then it will be approved,

[dankrutka]

"Urban Renewal commissioners are NOT willing to approve the latest Lower Bricktown restaurant design proposed by Randy Hogan.."

-Tweet from Steve : https://twitter.com/stevelackmeyer/s...56033436041217

Good news that they're not just rubber stamping anything. Hopefully this has some teeth for real change. At the very least let's see some real interaction with the canal.

[Pete]

Steve's next Tweet said their issue was with how the building interacts with the surface parking, not the canal.

So much for hope.

[king183]

Steve's next Tweet said their issue was with how the building interacts with the surface parking, not the canal.

So much for hope.

I read that tweet as the commissioners being upset that the building is designed to interact with surface and not with the canal. In other words, they want the building to interact with the canal.

[Pete]

Yes, I think I misinterpreted. Thanks for the correction.

Here it is:

Commissioners unhappy with how the building is designed to interact with surface parking, not the Bricktown Canal.