Strawberry Fields

[lasomeday]

Can we just stop with copying names from other, more famous places?

It is a nursing home in Mustang.

[aDark]

so no update, then?

[Plutonic Panda]

lol. That's what I'm wondering. It seems development has significantly slowed down. Hardly anything new announced. I bet that changes soon though if oil prices keep going up.

[warreng88]

OKC panel approves demolitions to make way for Strawberry Fields

By: Molly M. Fleming The Journal Record December 15, 2016

OKLAHOMA CITY – “This building is not that special,” said architect Sam Gresham.

An application to demolish the former dry cleaning building at 721 SW Fifth St. was approved Thursday by the Downtown Design Review Committee. The 1,750-square-foot building was constructed in 1940. It also served as a grocery store in the Orndale neighborhood.

Associate city planner Laura Griggs said during the DDRC meeting that the building could be considered a contributable structure to the neighborhood.

The building sits within the area planned for the Strawberry Fields development.

Developer Patricia Salame worked with architecture firm GSB Inc. on the master plan. The development spans from Western Avenue to Hudson Avenue, following the Oklahoma City Boulevard and going south to Interstate 40. Many existing buildings will remain, but Salame has received approval to demolish several homes.

Gresham said the 721 SW Fifth St. building’s interior is in poor condition and should not be considered for preservation.

But DDRC commissioner Connie Scothorn disagreed, and was the only person to vote against approving the application. She said the building was cute and could be an important historic marker to the next development.

She said she’s also concerned about approving the demolition permits without seeing the plan for what’s next.

Commission chairwoman Betsy Brunsteter said she also struggled with approving the demolition application. Commissioner Chuck Ainsworth said there’s a public safety concern with such a dilapidated building.

“You have to consider the overall impact of what you’re trying to achieve,” he said.

The city’s planning staff approved demolition permits for nine homes in the area. Some homes are on SW Fifth Street and other properties are on SW Seventh Street.

Salame said Strawberry Fields is being designed according to the city’s Core to Shore guidelines, the city’s policy guide, and the downtown design framework.

The drafted master plan calls for 700,000 square feet of retail space, 1.2 million square feet of office space, 4 million square feet of residential area, and 813,000 square feet of hotel space. Parking garages are included in the drafted plan as well.

Salame said architect Hans Butzer is also on her architect team, and is an investor in the development.

“He’s very talented,” Salame said. “We’re excited to have him on board.”

Salame said she and her team are still working on property acquisitions. That piece will finish in June 2017.

“We’re very excited about the project,” she said. “We look forward to breaking ground.”

[Pete]

They have already demolished dozens of properties in that area and almost every week they buy more, then apply to raze.

They talk about their future plans but from my understanding they are no where close to starting on anything.

[warreng88]

They have already demolished dozens of properties in that area and almost every week they buy more, then apply to raze.

They talk about their future plans but from my understanding they are no where close to starting on anything.

This is why the city needs to go to a demo/building permit process.

[Pete]

This has not been posted before so thought I would add it.

Note that they don't own the property that fronts the park or anything in the northern part of this schematic, it's all purely conceptual.

Also note the buildings in green which would remain; everything else is either already scraped or will be.

[TU 'cane]

Not to argue the merits or whether this is a "good" or "bad" development, but this is a rather ambitious project.

Saddle that with two others within "the vicinity" (disclaimer, I know the following aren't that close, but all are within a certain radius of downtown) in the Wheeler District and the upcoming Chickasaw master plan for the AICC. Between these three, there is and could potentially be an absurd amount of retail, office and housing that I question will be populated enough even over the next 10-15 years??
Unless OKC goes on a population triumph equal or moreso greater than what it is now over the next decade (meaning jobs, jobs, and more jobs will need to be created), has any of this crossed anyone else's minds?

Then it begs the question as to how these may impact future development within the core itself.

Maybe it's just me, but I see two majorly ambitious mixed use developments going on with a third to the East possibly that seem almost unreal for anything in Oklahoma.

[warreng88]

Not to argue the merits or whether this is a "good" or "bad" development, but this is a rather ambitious project.

Saddle that with two others within "the vicinity" (disclaimer, I know the following aren't that close, but all are within a certain radius of downtown) in the Wheeler District and the upcoming Chickasaw master plan for the AICC. Between these three, there is and could potentially be an absurd amount of retail, office and housing that I question will be populated enough even over the next 10-15 years??
Unless OKC goes on a population triumph equal or moreso greater than what it is now over the next decade (meaning jobs, jobs, and more jobs will need to be created), has any of this crossed anyone else's minds?

Then it begs the question as to how these may impact future development within the core itself.

Maybe it's just me, but I see two majorly ambitious mixed use developments going on with a third to the East possibly that seem almost unreal for anything in Oklahoma.

That was my thought as well until I noticed that each of these are multi-phase developments (I believe Wheeler is 10 phases) and knowing developers, they will not develop the later phases until they know the earlier phases will work. So, there will be a lot of one time costs for SF and Wheeler with infrastructure, common areas, engineering, etc in the early stages that will become less and less as the developments move forward and that will also shorten the timeline if they are ready to move forward as well.

[Pete]

Don't forget the huge Producer's Coop area which will require decades to cleanup and develop.



Core 2 Shore -- which includes this area -- has long been a pet project of the Alliance and others who dispense all the incentive money.

The primary reason they were so reluctant to provide Wheeler with a TIF or anything else was due to their preference for this area.

The Wheeler TIF was flat rejected by the powers that be multiple times before they finally made an end run around the Alliance, started lobbying city council directly, etc.

[shawnw]

I wonder if they will now go for a huge TIF as well?

[warreng88]

I wonder if they will now go for a huge TIF as well?

Considering how they will probably have to rebuild most of the streets and redo most of the utilities for more density, my guess would be yes.

[TU 'cane]

That was my thought as well until I noticed that each of these are multi-phase developments (I believe Wheeler is 10 phases) and knowing developers, they will not develop the later phases until they know the earlier phases will work. So, there will be a lot of one time costs for SF and Wheeler with infrastructure, common areas, engineering, etc in the early stages that will become less and less as the developments move forward and that will also shorten the timeline if they are ready to move forward as well.

Then they really have thought this out and the phasing of these projects will help with projections. That's the silver lining then.

And yea Pete, I already forgot about the coop area.

WOW. OKC is gonna be unreal if everything plays out.

[HOT ROD]

Some 30,000-50,000+ residents added to the central city if the four new areas develop as planned. ... WoW!!!

[Spartan]

So who is this Samale and why have I never heard of them, but yet they're going to pull off the most aspirational development I've seen proposed for OKC? hmmm...

And some people behind the scenes want to withhold support from Blair, who we know has the capacity to pull off Wheeler, bc they want Strawberry Fields instead. hmmm...

Blair should just propose renaming Western to Abbey Road and we'll all be good, right?

Not to argue the merits or whether this is a "good" or "bad" development, but this is a rather ambitious project.

Saddle that with two others within "the vicinity" (disclaimer, I know the following aren't that close, but all are within a certain radius of downtown) in the Wheeler District and the upcoming Chickasaw master plan for the AICC. Between these three, there is and could potentially be an absurd amount of retail, office and housing that I question will be populated enough even over the next 10-15 years??
Unless OKC goes on a population triumph equal or moreso greater than what it is now over the next decade (meaning jobs, jobs, and more jobs will need to be created), has any of this crossed anyone else's minds?

Then it begs the question as to how these may impact future development within the core itself.

Maybe it's just me, but I see two majorly ambitious mixed use developments going on with a third to the East possibly that seem almost unreal for anything in Oklahoma.

OKC still has a very small ratio of its metro population living in the center city relative to peer cities like Louisville and Nashville. 1 to 5% (conservative to ambitious) of a metro pop in the downtown is supportable; for OKC, that would be a min of like 14,500. We're at about half that, or 0.5% of the metro pop living in the center city. Minneapolis has like 50,000 downtown residents and their goal is 75,000 by 2025, by comparison...

I think also if OKC is going to be a competitive major city, it is going to need everything it builds going forward to be "unreal for anything in Oklahoma," whatever that means.

The way you turn the tide on sprawl isn't by fighting sprawl (a losing battle) but actually developing a marketable alternative. There are thousands of households that would consider downtown if it was more of a viable option and not just a niche market for high-income renters.

[TU 'cane]

^^ Good to know, thanks for the summary.
And the meaning behind "unreal for anything in Oklahoma" is simple: how many of these massive mixed use projects are there now (ones comparable in size to this, the Wheeler, and what little speculation from the AICC site)? And to have 3 going on in one city all within a couple miles of one another. Those things mixed together is what I personally determine to be "unreal."

[Spartan]

^^ Good to know, thanks for the summary.
And the meaning behind "unreal for anything in Oklahoma" is simple: how many of these massive mixed use projects are there now (ones comparable in size to this, the Wheeler, and what little speculation from the AICC site)? And to have 3 going on in one city all within a couple miles of one another. Those things mixed together is what I personally determine to be "unreal."

No, I liked your wording. I only added "whatever that means" for dramatic effect lol. It's a good way of putting it...myself, as a kid from the south side, if I'm underwhelmed a project probably shouldn't happen.

I would also point to Louisville as a great city that doesn't feel held back by its otherwise rural state, despite Gov. Bevin's best effort.

I'm also skeptical of the AICC project. It seems they're thinking big box retail, which would have worked if not for the airport big box stuff.

[Rover]

So who is this Samale and why have I never heard of them, but yet they're going to pull off the most aspirational development I've seen proposed for OKC? hmmm...

And some people behind the scenes want to withhold support from Blair, who we know has the capacity to pull off Wheeler, bc they want Strawberry Fields instead. hmmm...

Blair should just propose renaming Western to Abbey Road and we'll all be good, right?



OKC still has a very small ratio of its metro population living in the center city relative to peer cities like Louisville and Nashville. 1 to 5% (conservative to ambitious) of a metro pop in the downtown is supportable; for OKC, that would be a min of like 14,500. We're at about half that, or 0.5% of the metro pop living in the center city. Minneapolis has like 50,000 downtown residents and their goal is 75,000 by 2025, by comparison...

I think also if OKC is going to be a competitive major city, it is going to need everything it builds going forward to be "unreal for anything in Oklahoma," whatever that means.

The way you turn the tide on sprawl isn't by fighting sprawl (a losing battle) but actually developing a marketable alternative. There are thousands of households that would consider downtown if it was more of a viable option and not just a niche market for high-income renters.

Spartan, do you know the percentage of residents living downtown vs. total employment downtown for our peer cities?

[Spartan]

Spartan, do you know the percentage of residents living downtown vs. total employment downtown for our peer cities?

I actually don't and was secretly hoping nobody called me out on Louisville lol :P

I think it could be a good topic for a thread in Other Cities? I'd be really curious what we can all find out there on the inter webs.

If you google "[city] downtown population" it's pretty hit and miss. It just pulls a stat from a top search result that may be outdated or may be related to something else.

Edit: see thread here
http://www.okctalk.com/showthread.php?t=42854

[ABCOKC]

Well these renderings certainly make the project feel more real than when the website was a "Mood Board" filled with stock photos of mixed-use buildings. Still too early to get excited about anything but this will at least be interesting to follow going forward.

Regarding the demolitions, if Strawberry Fields stays true to these renderings (impossibly unlikely, I know), it doesn't seem as though there's much for preservationists to worry about. From what I can tell from perusing this area in Google maps, they plan to keep all of the significant and/or attractive buildings, though if someone has an example to the contrary I'd love to know about it. While they will of course deviate from these plans at some point in this decades-long process, there isn't a reason for concern at this point as far as I can tell. The fact that they specified this early on which structures are planned to be preserved demonstrates to me that they understand the necessity of these classic buildings as placemakers for the development.

Note that none of this is to say that the city shouldn't adopt a joint demo/building permit process as warreng88 suggested, just that thus far, from a preservationist perspective, these people seem to be far less of a danger to our historic C2S buildings than the City itself (Film Exchange, cough, cough).

On a slightly unrelated note, here is a map I made showing (very roughly) the land that Strawberry Fields, LLC has acquired according to the County Assessor's website (no idea how up to date their information is).

Attachment 13375

Note that they appear to own several parcels adjacent the Park between SW 5th and SW 6th; however the majority of their holdings are bounded by Shartel, Dewey, SW 4th and SW 7th. This is pure speculation, but it appears as though they're following the path of least resistance with regards to property acquisition: nearly all of their land (with 2 notable exceptions) consists of less prime plots which border neither Classen, the future Boulevard, nor the Park. These properties are, as already noted, largely small and residential.

The remainder of the land within the proposed Strawberry Fields development area is a smattering of single-family residential, industrial, city-owned, individual investor-owned, and that acquired by other real estate investment corporations.

[soonerguru]

What does the pink in the rendering denote?

[warreng88]

What does the pink in the rendering denote?

Hotel. I only figured that out after looking and comparing pages two and three of the master plan.

[ABCOKC]

Oops, that's embarrassing... This is the map of the land Strawberry Fields owns:

[hfry]

I believe it's the same area and maybe someone better at maps and the county asseror page can put it together but I believe the Bluementhals own a good portion of land in this area as well and back when the convention center site was up for a new site they were saying their land was for sale as well. Would not be surprised to see it used in this project to really full out the areas they don't own yet.

[catch22]

What would the land aquisition cost be for this? 35 million?