Is that a new apartment complex that Steve references in the article or one that has already been announced?
Dwellings at SoSA
Thanks for the replies!
More info on the Listing on 4th street. 605 NW 4th Street
What's the best way to drive through SoSA and see all of this? I'm guessing just E/W down 6, 7, 8..
Double lot (50 x 140) for sale on 7th Street right in the heart of all the nicer, new homes: $300K.
http://portal.ikenex.com/share/NjE2N...454#ad-image-0
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This house by Gardner Architects is now finished:
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One of OKC's oldest homes to see new life as mixed-use project
An ambitious renovation is planned for a Victorian home in Midtown, which dates to before statehood.
Developer Keena Oden recently purchased the house at 614 NW 8th, just south of Saint Anthony Hospital. It is believed to be the oldest existing structure in the neighborhood known as SoSA.
Plans filed with the city show a design by Ken Fitzsimmons of TASK Design which would convert the structure to feature two furnished upstairs apartments, and a meeting room and boutique space on the ground floor.
Although much of the original exterior will be restored, there will be some new space added as well as parking on the rear alley.
The apartments are to be furnished and the meeting space would feature artwork in a gallery setting.
Oden hopes to find a nice boutique or gift shop to take the other downstairs space.
Some original 'gingerbread' elements have already been revealed through careful removal of non-original siding.
The plans will be reviewed by the Urban Design Commission on July 26th. The city's Planning Department has recommended the commission approve the application.
If approved, Oden would invite artist to submit works to the gallery on the theme “What is home?”. Fresh start students from the Homeless Alliance would be especially encouraged to participate. All ticket sale proceeds would benefit the Homeless Alliance and artists would receive 100% of the sale.
From Steve's chat this morning.
Thoughts on this? I haven't really thought much about this but I really think the streets through SoSA could use a road diet and I think it would go a long way towards giving the area a more neighborhood feel.Guest: In 5 years, do you see SOSA being a dense infill of condos/houses/apartments? Decent amount of other buildings might have to go in the process
Steve Lackmeyer replied:
SoSA - the southwest residential corner of Midtown - is developing rapidly with infill development taking place along all of the cross streets. Soon, very soon, a discussion is needed about the width and design of NW 4, NW 5 and NW 6. They were widened and designed before the 1967 opening of the original Interstate 40 and are no longer needed or used as major corridors to and from downtown. The neighborhood is being restored. It's time to look at whether four lane streets with curbside parallel parking can be reduced to two lanes with angled parking.
Absolutely.
I lived in SoSA for a year and those streets don't carry much traffic at all and are barriers to a more intimate neighborhood feel.
Just look at the Dwellings at SoSA being built on a 4-lane 6th Street. Think about how much nicer that setting would be with 2 lanes, bike lanes, etc.
And BTW, NW 4th as it heads into downtown from the west is one of the most embarrassingly bad stretches of road in all of OKC. Badly patched and just awful.
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New trees lining the street and/or medians with trees would also do wonders for NW 4th, 5th, and 6th.
Here you can see 4 homes under construction on either side of NW 6th: 1 on the north side 3 on the south.
Also, Union at SoSA is visible.
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That one up front and center-left makes an interesting architectural statement.
So much land for development!
I toured the one on the far right (green) during the home tour, it's pretty great.
Progress at the Victorian house project at 614 NW 8th:
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Glad it's being renovated as a Victorian vs being demolished or stripped and re-skinned like the other recent project in SOSA. Simply as a function of when OKC was founded (at the very end of the Victorian era) we have almost zero representations of that housing type, as opposed to slightly older cities like Wichita, which has hundreds. Victorian was over within a bout a decade of 1889, and most of the original Victorians were built in places which are now the CBD, Automobile Alley, etc., meaning they were demolished in favor of commercial.
The few that survive - the Overholser Mansion, for instance - were built far enough from the center of town to survive. Overholser was built on barren prairie outside of town.
We need to retain every little bit we can or all context of where we came from will be lost.
Agreed. Guthrie is a jewel, if a bit of a sleepy museum.
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