Originally Posted by
bchris02
I hope you are right. Penn Square could easily be retrofitted into something larger and more upscale than it is today. Replace most surface parking with garage parking and build another wing and anchor spot.
People don't want to hear it and will probably flame me for saying it, but OKC has very poor retail for a city its size. People can argue that Tulsa doesn't always get everything first, which is true, but nobody can argue that Tulsa doesn't have more upscale retail than OKC. If something is upscale, it has historically went to Tulsa first or in a lot of cases Tulsa only. I am not trying to belittle OKC or make anybody mad, I am just stating reality. I would say most cities the size of OKC would be like Tulsa and OKC's current offerings combined. Tulsa is stronger on the high end and OKC is stronger on the mid/low end.
When you start talking cities that are slightly bigger its an entirely different ballgame. Penn Square Mall may be great by OKC standards but if you drop it in Charlotte, it would be competing with Carolina Place for THIRD or FOURTH best mall in the metro. Charlotte is massive now and its growing so fast it can no longer be compared to OKC, but in the mid 2000s when they remodeled Southpark attracting the type of retailers most Oklahomans drive to Dallas for and built Northlake, it wasn't much larger than OKC is today.
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