Fine Grained Development Vs. Big Block sized developments.

[Ross MacLochness]

I just came across this article http://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2...ale-developers but i have thought about this in the past.

I think that instead of doing massive The Edge style apartments (which I'm not saying are horrible by any means), it would be great if big lots could be split up into tiny lots for individuals to develop on their own. It would make buying property downtown more affordable and would give our city a much more interesting vibe more similar to cities of old. A block developed in this way would be incomplete for longer than one with a big project on it, but in the end would have more character.

Thoughts??

[Pete]

^

This more or less happened with the Brownstones in Deep Deuce.

Some units were developed but subsequently they sold lots to individual buyers.

And certainly this is happening in SoSA as well.

[Ross MacLochness]

^

This more or less happened with the Brownstones in Deep Deuce.

Some units were developed but subsequently they sold lots to individual buyers.

And certainly this is happening in SoSA as well.

yes that's true, I didn't think about the brownstones! there are also a few other individual developments scattered about in deep deuce. Still, those lots are the exception. I'd like to see this happen on the scale of an entire block or blocks. I know Midtown R want to be careful with their large blocks yet to be developed, but I'm dreaming of one of those being sold to the people. Or perhaps core to shore could largely be developed in this way. I know this idea makes the top nervous, but the greatest cities in the world were created slowly by individuals from a chaotic bottom up approach rather than from the top down. Normal people are capable of creating great things without even realizing it when we work together one small bit at a time.

[Pete]

The issue is that any developer who buys a chunk of land can make much more by developing it than selling off smaller lots.

Wheeler District is another example of the small-lot approach.

[Ross MacLochness]

Hmm I suppose that's true. Perhaps this only would work on property the city owns and then sells off, or some imaginary benevolent property owner who is slightly less profit driven. Why was granular ownership/development the norm in the past, but not so much today?

Thats great about Wheeler. Will they be built individually or be purchased pre built/pre designed?

p.s. Thanks for engaging me in conversation. It's easier to work out ideas when challenged!

[Rover]

The large scale developers might take a look at something like the big center at Memorial and May being done by Mazaheri. Though it is done as one big center, the fronts make it look like a large number of buildings built side by side. Still one center but much more appealing and human scaled.

[Pete]

This is also happening in the JFK neighborhood on the near NE side, where OCURA bought a bunch of residential properties and have been putting out RFP's for home builders.

And really, the entire Page Woodson project fits as well and was also administered by OCURA.

[dankrutka]

Pete, are the RFPs for small lots?

[riflesforwatie]

This is also happening in the JFK neighborhood on the near NE side, where OCURA bought a bunch of residential properties and have been putting out RFP's for home builders.

And really, the entire Page Woodson project fits as well and was also administered by OCURA.

It would be great if OCURA would offer their lots the west of Lottie in that fashion, too. AFAIK the single-lot RFPs are only for areas east of Lottie right now. That's a shame too because OCURA (I think) owns a fair amount of the empty land between 4th and 8th and Lincoln and Lottie. Probably going to go to big developers once enough current residents move/homes are demolished.

[traxx]

Hmm I suppose that's true. Perhaps this only would work on property the city owns and then sells off, or some imaginary benevolent property owner who is slightly less profit driven. Why was granular ownership/development the norm in the past, but not so much today?

I don't really have an answer for you so much as a theory.

I think there are a lot of factors that go into that. Cities in the U.S. have developed over the last few centuries. And a century or two or three ago, business moved much slower. Cities grew slower. Real estate wasn't really seen as a business like it is today. There weren't really any large real estate or investment companies then that wanted to (or could) build large scale housing that took up a city block.

OKC used to have what you're talking about. I posted this same picture on the Cotter Ranch thread.



You see the Colcord in the bottom of the pic. This is looking south toward what would be I-40 now. Someone in that thread said that that stretch had been a wasteland for as long as they had known. I'm the same way. But look at the different buildings butted up against one another and the density. There were no superblocks. And there was mixed use. It was a time when people would live above their business that were on the first floor. We tore it all down.

Now days real estate is big business. Pete already mentioned some of the reasons that companies don't want to sell off land as small parcels. Also they want to recoup their money more quickly which can be done with a large project instead of holding the land and selling it off in pieces. And we're desperately trying to get back the density we lost with urban renewal and so we don't really have the luxury of time to let it happen organically like a city would've done a couple of hundred years ago.

At least that's my take on it.

[Eric]

This is basically how things were developed at the turn of the 19th century, and in large part what has been going in in Tulsa north of the tracks now for a while, but even then, most of the new construction is at least a half block development. Like the Fairfield, The Metro, AHHA, GreenArch. Davenport Lofts will have a small footprint mid-block though.

I think the following future developments are also no more than half a block in footprint:
* Archer Flats
* The Building developed by Ross Group accross from OneOK Park
* Holiday Inn Express

Makes the area more and more dense by not having entire blocks dedicated to one thing.

South of the tracks is slightly different story with Santa Fe Square and The Edge.

I'm guessing most of the change has to do with financing.

[Pete]

Most the large blocks for development were assembled by OCURA to promote redevelopment.

As noted, most of these large developments in the core sit on sites that were originally a ton of small lots under separate ownership.

OCURA / City of OKC used eminent domain and public funds to acquire all these lots, just as they are now doing for the convention center and have already mostly completed for the MAPS 3 park.

Even with the Edge, it was one large site for the old Mercy Hospital but OCURA acquired and only sought RFP's for the entire parcel, which they have always done.

Now, we are getting the 2nd round of these large developments where private owners are taking properties that were once assembled by the City -- like Stage Center -- and selling them to other developers, in tact.

Also, the City is very favorable toward developers looking to consolidate and usually demolish multiple buildings. BOK Park Plaza is a prime and recent example but Sandridge did pretty much the same thing.


This has happened in the past and continues to happen if not directly by City itself, certainly through the policies that allow it to happen.

I think it's safe to say the City is extremely favorable to large business and big developers, and this phenomenon is just one example. If anything, that approach is picking up momentum.

[Ross MacLochness]

I think it's safe to say the City is extremely favorable to large business and big developers, and this phenomenon is just one example. If anything, that approach is picking up momentum.

I don't understand the rationale behind doing that from the city's perspective. Sure, allowing a company to do what they want with a block might incentivize that company to relocate or invest in downtown, but it perpetuates the cycle of having to incentivize companies because we don't have an attractive and vibrant enough place in it's own right. It works against the city's interest in the long run by creating more distance between things downtown, deterring pedestrians, connectivity and tax revenue. Not only that, building out an entire block for one use diminishes the ability for that block to stay resilient should that one use fail. If a block has many uses and one or two of those uses fail, it's not that noticable in the overall scheme of things.

[Urbanized]

^^^^^^^^
Issues such as these were almost the total focus of the Mayor's Development Roundtable yesterday. It's very encouraging to see these topics discussed openly in front of hundreds of OKC's civic and business leaders. The Downtown OKC, Inc Developer's luncheon is another example of this.

But at times it feels like these events are cases of preaching to the choir. It's great to see people who are chief difference makers in development, such as the City Manager, council members, the Director of Planning, Cathy O'Connor, etc., taking part in these meetings and discussions, but the fact of the matter is that the disconnect often happens at the corporate leadership level. The good news is at least that the choir seems to be getting bigger, so hopefully that places pressure on corporate developments going forward to do the right thing when it comes to urban infill.

[Pete]

All those people you mentioned as city leaders are the biggest culprits as I've pointed out upthread, regardless of the lip service paid at these events.

They may get the principles but just think about all the super block developments they have facilitated with more on the way.

Can you think of one example where they have broken down big blocks into smaller pieces? I can think of dozens where the opposite is true and also have provided tons of public incentives to do so.

[riflesforwatie]

I will say I have some optimism that if Rand's full moon project or "The Row on Twelve", or maybe even the condos at 6th and Broadway (though that lot is larger) work out, some of those in power will start to realize that "fine-grained development" can work, and not everything needs to be LEVEL or Lift or Metropolitan.

But of course those three examples are not what Pete is referencing - they were already small lots. May be a long time before we see the city break up a big block into small lots to allow this sort of stuff to proceed.

[Pete]

The Cox Center is the only project where the city may actually facilitate breaking up a large block into smaller pieces. Of course, they assembled that super block from dozens of separate owners to begin with.

But even then, don't be surprised if they offer to restore the street grid but still put the entire site out as one big RFP.

[Rover]

You also need local banks willing to lend for smaller and often riskier small projects. We haven't had local people step up and build a whole lot of the smaller projects and we are way way behind. Seems like sometimes we have to rely on big projects or not make significant progress. Can you name 20 local developers who would each take a part of the Cox center site and step up with a commitment to each do a 10-20 story development on their share? Do you see any proposal to do a decent small footprint building on the old Ford site? It sometimes is easier getting money for a $100 million project than a $20 Million. Investors and banks are impressed with BIG visions, not with little-big visions.

[Urbanized]

All those people you mentioned as city leaders are the biggest culprits as I've pointed out upthread, regardless of the lip service paid at these events...

Well, I didn't say that they were all necessarily buying in. ��
I only meant that it's encouraging to see them taking in that material. But again, I think kowtowing to corporate interests is what they are doing in most cases. If the CEO of a major corporation wants to build a new HQ, the City tends to lay down on urban design principles, because...well, we do want that HQ, right? The disconnect is that many of our corporate leaders are NOT in that audience, are often blissfully unaware of or disinterested in good urban design principles, are catering to a primarily suburban workforce, and in the case of OKC might even run companies whose core mission is at odds with sustainable development. OKC is disproportionately challenged in this regard.

I think the challenge is to get City officials to believe so thoroughly in good urban design that they begin to challenge corporations and developers to consider human scale in their work. This is already coming through in the work of receptive developers like Gary Brooks or the Midtown Renaissance guys, whose developments continue to get better and better, showing more and more adherence to the principles of walkability and good urban design with each new outing.

I honestly believe it's up to people like Gary, the Midtown Renaissance guys, Pivot, Blair Humphreys, Steve Mason and others to show from the ground up the way it SHOULD be done. At the end of the day it's the money that drives most of this.