BOK Park Plaza

[Canoe]

The arts garage is fully leased.

Edit: high five Dr. Taco.

[Pete]

Yep, ground floor is fully leased and was before the garage was even complete.

[bombermwc]

There is a ton wrong here, but I'll stick with he fact that the Arts District Garage retail is only empty because they are not done building it yet. Every day there are workers in that space finishing it out. It is 100% rented I believe. First tenants move in in September. Notably Clarity Coffee.

I don't know you Bomber, but your post borders on the willfully ignorant.

Watch it taco.....the garage itself has been open for something like a year now. If they take that long to get the retail open, that's pathetic. Not to mention the fact that when I walked by it not that long ago, all but 1 space still had a For Lease sign in the window. And you don't have to agree with me on the parking issue, but that does not make me ignorant.

[Bellaboo]

Watch it taco.....the garage itself has been open for something like a year now. If they take that long to get the retail open, that's pathetic. Not to mention the fact that when I walked by it not that long ago, all but 1 space still had a For Lease sign in the window. And you don't have to agree with me on the parking issue, but that does not make me ignorant.

False... Been open about 9 months.

[SouthsideSooner]

There is a ton wrong here, but I'll stick with he fact that the Arts District Garage retail is only empty because they are not done building it yet. Every day there are workers in that space finishing it out. It is 100% rented I believe. First tenants move in in September. Notably Clarity Coffee.

I don't know you Bomber, but your post borders on the willfully ignorant.

I'm not going to call anyone ignorant but I think it's only fair to point out that the only thing retail about the use of space in this building is the small coffee shop. The rest has been leased as office space.

[FritterGirl]

Not exactly sure what they're doing next door, but there's lots of shaking and quaking going on. Whole building at 420 is shaking, and there's an excavator in the space immediately adjacent to our building on the east, so I'm assuming their breaking through the basement level there.

[HOT ROD]

As others have stated, I don't mind the garages per se as it does show the growth of Downtown as a business centre since we seem to have enough spots for Entertainment uses but not for Office. Other major cities already ahve many more garages that OKC so it is nice to see the growth here as we 'catch-up' if you will.

But my problems stem from the lack of design and planning for these garages. Even if you look at the pic you can already see two existing parking garages; neither full then imagine 3 more garages seen in that same shot; 2 on the block and one on the left (Clayco). And ONLY Clayco has a design that integrates it with the super structure(s), meaning we will have this shot with 4 stand alone garages, 5 garages total. Do we really need that many garages/parking spots in such a small area? I totally agree with those that have expressed concern that existing surface lots are being overlooked when IMO the city should encourage (through master plans) garages to be built on those sites FIRST.

Particularly with Transit coming online more and more - and a very simple solution might be to quickly activate Commuter Bus at least during rush hours between downtown and the suburbs of most office workers (which could be polled). If we ran Commuter Bus today between Edmond and Downtown and Norman/Moore and Downtown, we would very likely cover the bulk of the commute into Downtown and perhaps Piedmont-NW Expressway-Downtown; leaving garages for those in other areas not served by this commuter service. There's also the side benefit of a more integrated metro area via transit because the Norman-Downtown route in particular could be set up for commute both ways given the student population at OU that might want to reside in Oklahoma City (Edmond also with UCO to a lesser degree).

Wouldn't it be faster/cheaper/ and easier to implement Commuter Bus TODAY, implement responsible planning and design standards for garage construction (existing lots prioritized, garages on lots with existing structures must contain retail spaces, those in the CBD ZONE required to have certain % underground AND built mid-block per PLANNING DEPT discretion. ...), and the streetcar which is coming - why not go this route to encourage and expand Transit and use it as the growth mechanism for downtown while executing a master plan for vehicle storage in the CBD.

I can tell you this is almost exactly the model that Seattle executes, we have garages but most are underground, nearly all with mid-block entrances, and any above ground have retail integrated along and to develop pedestrian corridors. The primary 'vehicle' for commuters into the Seattle CBD is transit; with the use of Commuter Bus to ferry the majority of office workers to/from the bedroom suburbs. Seattle is not perfect but it is a model that I think would work perfectly in OKC and wouldn't cost near as much but might have an even bigger impact per capita.

[Urbanized]

Not exactly sure what they're doing next door, but there's lots of shaking and quaking going on. Whole building at 420 is shaking, and there's an excavator in the space immediately adjacent to our building on the east, so I'm assuming their breaking through the basement level there.

Any chance they decided to go ahead and demolish 420 W. Main as long as they have the diggy machines out?

[Pete]

wareng88 just sent this to me.

Not sure what they are doing but perhaps jack-hammering the foundation, although not sure why they would do that before pulling down the structure. This is the building closest to the City offices,other than the one that is a pile of rubble (to the right of the photo):

[Teo9969]

Any chance they decided to go ahead and demolish 420 W. Main as long as they have the diggy machines out?

I don't know whether to laugh hysterically or be horrified at this comment

[jn1780]

wareng88 just sent this to me.

Not sure what they are doing but perhaps jack-hammering the foundation, although not sure why they would do that before pulling down the structure. This is the building closest to the City offices,other than the one that is a pile of rubble (to the right of the photo):

Maybe they want the building to fall into the basement as they are bringing it down? If they bring the building down on top of the basement roof they would have to drive the excavator onto a potentially unstable floor to remove the debris.

[FritterGirl]

Any chance they decided to go ahead and demolish 420 W. Main as long as they have the diggy machines out?

Man. You'd think with the way things are shaking around here, they may just be doing that. At least it's not quite as bad as jackhammer day when they were separating the building immediately adjacent to 420 from our east wall. Talk about pounding.

A few of us do worry just what kind of sustained shaking this 1930s structure can take. Guess we'll find out! O.O

[warreng88]

wareng88 just sent this to me.

Not sure what they are doing but perhaps jack-hammering the foundation, although not sure why they would do that before pulling down the structure. This is the building closest to the City offices,other than the one that is a pile of rubble (to the right of the photo):

They were tearing down the building from the back from what I could tell.

[Pete]

One day later and this is all that is left of that green building (old Dorn's):

From https://twitter.com/OKCNightCourt:

[bombermwc]

I'm not going to call anyone ignorant but I think it's only fair to point out that the only thing retail about the use of space in this building is the small coffee shop. The rest has been leased as office space.

That's part of my point here. And to make a statement to the timeline, 9 months vs 12 months...it's not really that big of a difference. The point is, the spaces still don't have tenants in them, LONG after the garage was opened. And at that, it's not retail...it's office space. The one tenant sign I saw on the space was for an arts related group...can't remember which one it was. If we're so adamant that retail spaces are available, we're not exactly showing a high success rate in having retail vendors in there. It's difficult to maintain them because after 5pm, downtown empties out. After 5, it all shifts to Bricktown...and we've developed it that way.

I know there are a few of you that think this it the totally wrong way to think about this. OK, that's fine. I'm just saying im not going to lose any sleep at night because a garage that gets built, doesn't have a full 1st floor of ground retail available. Throw 50k people living downtown in the core of the CBD and I would probably change that idea. But that's not really EVER going to happen. There are too many examples of similar cities around the country that add CDB residential and it does have a good growth, but it never quite reaches the urban density necessary to sustain a whole micro-economy, which is what we're really talking about trying to offer. That whole idea of having smaller version of all things you need within walking distance, and larger version a bus/train ride away.

[Pete]

All that space was rented to arts and City offices before the garage opened. They are just slow to move in for various reasons.

Clarity Coffee is very close to opening.


This is a City-owned garage and they never really marketed the space to retail and other services because they had to place City offices and the arts tenants due to wanting to make space for the south Clayco (now likely to be the convention hotel) site.

Also, in addition to the coffee shop there will also be a health clinic, which is a service, not an office use.

Bottom line: There seems to be plenty of demand for ground-level space in the CBD which is why is so important to insist on it in parking garages. Not only does it add a lot to street life and other urban principles, it's needed.

[bombermwc]

I'm not trying to be snarky here, im honestly curious. Why would the city put their own offices in what we're trying to call a prime retail area? it seems like a total waste of space. The arts tenants makes sense, but in the time it's taken to get the space ready, there are countless options available for other space downtown (or elsewhere) for city offices to go in. If we're so hurting for retail space, it seems like a major mistake to use the space as municipal office space. Now that Clayco is on hold, we're not exactly under the same pressure to get things moving on that block either. And it doesn't seem like that's going to move any time soon.

[Pete]

Why would the city put their own offices in what we're trying to call a prime retail area?

Because they own the building.

Also, because they need flexibility with the arts tenants due to the need to move them when it makes sense to move them, rather than evict them now and forgo rent.

[shawnw]

Probably a dumb question, but while everything is dug up is there a way to help mitigate future basement flooding problems for 420? Can it be sealed up better from the outside?

[Stickman]

Probably a dumb question, but while everything is dug up is there a way to help mitigate future basement flooding problems for 420? Can it be sealed up better from the outside?

Not a dumb question, it happened across the street during the building of the parking garage.

[Pete]

From today. Looks like everything is completely gone except the three buildings along Hudson and the old Lunch Box:

[Pete]

From Urban Pioneer:

[Canoe]

Did we ever establish what the pink stuff was for?

[bombermwc]

Man, they're making some fast progress on the short stuff. Now the trick will be, once the last big ones are gone, how fast will they get moving on BUILDING? It's always easier to destroy than to create.

[betts]

Man, they're making some fast progress on the short stuff. Now the trick will be, once the last big ones are gone, how fast will they get moving on BUILDING? It's always easier to destroy than to create.

As I remember every time I walk past the hole in the ground that was my beloved Stage Center.