Boulevard Place

[Bowser214]

Glad to see they finally mowed the forest of weeds the other day

[UrbanistPoke]

Developer might start moving on this one soon - they just got their most recent Tulsa project approved through TDA/Partner Tulsa so probably means they can turn their focus more towards getting financing, etc. in place. Was told this got placed on the backburner. They're building an 8 story apartment building next to BOK Center on the parking lot on the block with the old Cimarex tower, Hampton Inn, and the Northwest Mutual building.

[HangryHippo]

Developer might start moving on this one soon - they just got their most recent Tulsa project approved through TDA/Partner Tulsa so probably means they can turn their focus more towards getting financing, etc. in place. Was told this got placed on the backburner. They're building an 8 story apartment building next to BOK Center on the parking lot on the block with the old Cimarex tower, Hampton Inn, and the Northwest Mutual building.

Any renderings of the Tulsa project?

[UrbanistPoke]

Any renderings of the Tulsa project?

All these are from the public meeting from last month where TDA approved the land sale and they should start construction in a few months. Copy of the TDA agenda here: https://www.docdroid.net/ttUxVhw/age...3-1-pdf#page=3

Rose Rock is doing multiple projects between Tulsa and OKC - it's a small firm too staff wise (not money/funding wise). Once some of the other projects move along I'm sure this will go forward. Can't make everything happen all at once and Rose Rock is a good group.

[G.Walker]

Not going to hold my breath. If they couldn't take on the project head on, they never should of bid, going on 6 years. Sell the land Omni and let the hotel expand.

[G.Walker]

Not going to hold my breath. If they couldn't take on the project head on, they never should of bid, going on 5 years. Sell the land Omni and let the hotel expand.

[HangryHippo]

All these are from the public meeting from last month where TDA approved the land sale and they should start construction in a few months. Copy of the TDA agenda here: https://www.docdroid.net/ttUxVhw/age...3-1-pdf#page=3

Rose Rock is doing multiple projects between Tulsa and OKC - it's a small firm too staff wise (not money/funding wise). Once some of the other projects move along I'm sure this will go forward. Can't make everything happen all at once and Rose Rock is a good group.

Appreciate the links and information!

[goldenHurricane22]

Has Omni indicated they want to expand? My big questions are 1) if they'd want to, given potential new downtown hotels on the horizon that could saturate the market, and 2) if so, what time scale to expansion? Granted, someone somewhere probably has done the economic analysis that would be able to give an indication--I am not going to pretend I have any clue to that. But my worry that if Omni has determined, based on population trajectories, tourism growth, etc., that it isn't viable for, say, another 10 years to have an expansion, that we would end up in the same situation of an undeveloped lot sitting there. Granted, they could go the route of making it a parking lot in the time being, which would then mitigate the field of weeds.

[G.Walker]

We are about to be on an international stage with the 2028 summer Olympics, thats enough juice for Omni to expand.

[UrbanistPoke]

We are about to be on an international stage with the 2028 summer Olympics, thats enough juice for Omni to expand.

No.

I see people on here bemoaning the amount of money to build a new arena. You think it's worth giving Omni another $300-400 million to expand? Because that's what it would take. And no, one sport being shown on TV for 5 minute clips off and on internationally does not warrant Omni paying for that themselves let alone mean OKC should invest that either. The way they flip between sports, literally no one is going to have a clue they aren't watching a facility that isn't in LA much less one that is in Oklahoma (hate to break that to people). That event will bring in spectators, but not for longer than a few days for a week or two - not for the next 20 years. Much larger cities than OKC have to financially support convention hotels and OKC is not a tourism spot like Austin or Nashville where a convention size hotel can self finance itself. The Omni does not need to be larger than it already is or it would completely wipe out the hotel market downtown for the next 5-10 years. OKC needs more organic growth with dozens of different hotels/brands on a dozen different surface parking lots in close proximity to the convention center - not one, 1,200 or more room hotel.

IF there is ever a need for another 600 large block of rooms hotel - OKC still owns plenty of land on the southside of the convention center that could hold a second convention hotel plus an expanded convention center. Maybe in a decade or two.

[G.Walker]

We already have a dozen different hotels/brands on a dozen different surface parking lots , so what's your point. If anything, OKC need another 500+ 5 star hotel, and maybe another. We have enough cheap 4-6 story 135 room Fairfield & Country Inn's, time to think bigger.

[UrbanistPoke]

We already have a dozen different hotels/brands on a dozen different surface parking lots , so what's your point. If anything, OKC need another 500+ 5 star hotel, and maybe another. We have enough cheap 4-6 story 135 room Fairfield & Country Inn's, time to think bigger.

You have zero clue how any of that works. This isn't Sim City or City Skylines and the City of Oklahoma City also doesn't have that kind of money to throw around - will be lucky to get a new arena financed.

OKC actually does need more Fairfield Inn (with a bit less parking) and could use another dozen of one's like the Renaissance in Bricktown. That's how you build a vibrant city too.

The occupancy rate of the new Omni is less than 50%, that's awful for a normal hotel. There's a reason they don't normally build hotels that large and no Omni has zero interest in expanding the OKC hotel. The size of the Omni in OKC does not limit any conventions that would be interested in coming to OKC in the first place. The ONLY thing that damaged OKC from being able to land events was moving the center too far south and away from existing hotel stock. That's something that isn't fixable fast.

[G.Walker]

With you only having 53 comments and just joined a few months ago. I am taking you don't know much about OKCTALK, and my rep on here. So I am going to take anything you say with a grain a salt. But it's ok, it really is, nothing personal, this is just a forum. I stand by what I say. Omni is great, and bustling, not sure where you get your facts from, you must live in a tent on the lake.

[UrbanistPoke]

With you only having 53 comments and just joined a few months ago. I am taking you don't know much about OKCTALK, and my rep on here. So I am going to take anything you say with a grain a salt. But it's ok, it really is, nothing personal, this is just a forum. I stand by what I say. Omni is great, and bustling, not sure where you get your facts from, you must live in a tent on the lake.

It's ok, I didn't take what you said with more than a grain of salt either if you think it's a good idea to take a potential project away from a reputable developer with Tim Strange as the chairman of the company on the fanciful dream of expanding a convention center hotel that is already the perfect size for the market. A dream that would have to be 100% paid for by taxpayers in order to do so. That would be just awesome to see I bet. Would really move OKC forward into future by bankrupting the city for dumb projects.

[Jake]

Where does one check the occupancy rates for hotels in the metro? Is there like a website?

[UrbanistPoke]

Where does one check the occupancy rates for hotels in the metro? Is there like a website?

Well I would like to clarify - that type of occupancy rate isn't terrible for a convention sized hotel. A normal sized hotel, yeah. That's why convention hotels are almost always subsidized or they couldn't maintain the amount of staffing, etc. needed to be able to scale up quickly for large events. Hotel data is difficult to get, I get info from subscriber data sources used by hotel developers. Omni could likely financially build and operate a hotel in OKC around 200-300, but that doesn't allow you to book big events so cities have to pay them to build the rooms they wouldn't need to operate a legitimate profitable business in that location. A 200-300 room Omni in OKC in that location would probably have good REVPAR and Occupancy, but not a 600 room one - certainly not a 800 + room if it was expanded. The city would likely have to pay 100% of the costs to do that until the market gets bigger or tourism gets substantially bigger in the market.

Only in places like Austin, Nashville, etc. or really large cities like NYC, Miami, etc. can these types of hotels fill up enough on non-convention weekends and maintain a profitable operating margin that they don't need a ton of city incentives to build one. Even in Austin sometimes the Hilton, Fairmount are well below 50% occupancy but they have dozens of weekends too like F1, Austin City Limits, etc. that they can charge $1,000+ a room a night and it evens out less busy weekends/weekdays.

[jdross1982]

Give me 3-5 more renaissance size hotels or residential buildings 10 or so floors would go a LONG way towards building the downtown most people are wanting. With the Dream project, Boulevard Place and others in West downtown brings a lot more people frequently downtown. I agree, giving Omni another 100-300 million plus to expand doesn't get OKC to what is truly needed downtown and that is more residential.

[BG918]

Rose Rock is also actively building single family rental communities in OKC and Tulsa.

I know the Tulsa project also requires a TIF commitment so it probably won’t start this year.

[UrbanistPoke]

Rose Rock is also actively building single family rental communities in OKC and Tulsa.

I know the Tulsa project also requires a TIF commitment so it probably won’t start this year.

They are, under the brand called Trulo. So they have a lot of projects going on for a pretty small staff. I'm surprised they haven't hired a few development managers. Their Alley's End project should be starting soon too or they'll lose the tax credit award on it or have to apply for extensions - not sure what people expect.

Since the TIF in that area of Downtown Tulsa is already active they don't have to wait on anything. They just need to finish the construction docs and permits approved which will probably take until early next year. You might start seeing dirt work before that and start crane assembly early in the year. My guess is they'll need one given how small the site is.

Western Supply I think is already moving dirt and they just got their TIF allocation approved the meeting prior to this one (or it might have been in the same one as this one I can't remember).

[HOT ROD]

Has Omni indicated they want to expand? My big questions are 1) if they'd want to, given potential new downtown hotels on the horizon that could saturate the market, and 2) if so, what time scale to expansion? Granted, someone somewhere probably has done the economic analysis that would be able to give an indication--I am not going to pretend I have any clue to that. But my worry that if Omni has determined, based on population trajectories, tourism growth, etc., that it isn't viable for, say, another 10 years to have an expansion, that we would end up in the same situation of an undeveloped lot sitting there. Granted, they could go the route of making it a parking lot in the time being, which would then mitigate the field of weeds.

def not saturating the hotel market. OKC would need 10,000 hotel rooms and even then wouldn't be saturated, we just start getting bigger, national/international events. ... (we currently have what, 4500 downtown rooms?). OKC could definitely use some national flags - we don't have a full service marriott, hyatt, holiday inn, or their business derivatives other than Renaissance. OKC could def use some love from those full-service brands; to compete with other big cities.

[soonerguru]

It's ok, I didn't take what you said with more than a grain of salt either if you think it's a good idea to take a potential project away from a reputable developer with Tim Strange as the chairman of the company on the fanciful dream of expanding a convention center hotel that is already the perfect size for the market. A dream that would have to be 100% paid for by taxpayers in order to do so. That would be just awesome to see I bet. Would really move OKC forward into future by bankrupting the city for dumb projects.

The people behind this project may be reputable, but their project management on this has been a massive disappointment—to be charitable.

[UrbanistPoke]

def not saturating the hotel market. OKC would need 10,000 hotel rooms and even then wouldn't be saturated, we just start getting bigger, national/international events. ... (we currently have what, 4500 downtown rooms?). OKC could definitely use some national flags - we don't have a full service marriott, hyatt, holiday inn, or their business derivatives other than Renaissance. OKC could def use some love from those full-service brands; to compete with other big cities.

Haha uh what? 10,000 rooms... yeah no. Downtown Austin has about 12,000 hotels and about 10x the demand for hotel rooms downtown. OKC needs maybe another 1,000-2,000 rooms downtown in the next 3-5 years maximum.

[UrbanistPoke]

The people behind this project may be reputable, but their project management on this has been a massive disappointment—to be charitable.

It's easy to critic from the outside looking in, the development process isn't easy nor is it fast on bigger projects like this. Especially when you're looking at any type of incentives and building a product type that doesn't really existing in OKC yet (concrete mid-rise/high-rise multifamily). Getting a bank to buy into that is not as easy as people seem to think it is. I don't think people realize how long developers work in a quite phase in normal operations before they announce projects. They don't get that luxury when it is a project on public land. It isn't uncommon for a project like this to take 2-3 years to get off the ground in a market like Dallas, let alone in OKC. People need to have more realistic expectations on here. Rent levels are just now at a tipping point where concrete construction is legitimately feasible in both Tulsa and OKC.

[HOT ROD]

Haha uh what? 10,000 rooms... yeah no. Downtown Austin has about 12,000 hotels and about 10x the demand for hotel rooms downtown. OKC needs maybe another 1,000-2,000 rooms downtown in the next 3-5 years maximum.

and that should be OKC's goal if it wants to compete with said city. Im not saying OKC should build 5000 rooms in one or even 5 years, I'm saying it should be the goal for OKC to compete years later. OKC would 'qualify' for big events if we have the room space, just look at where we are today and the bookings we're able to get - they're contingent on room space availability and OKC shouldn't become complacent.

I agree with you that we shouldn't focus on only one convention hotel, I like the idea of multiple flags around 300-400 filling the downtown landscape. We can build another flagship 800+ room convention hotel a decade later once the cc is expanded to the south,

[Rover]

It's easy to critic from the outside looking in, the development process isn't easy nor is it fast on bigger projects like this. Especially when you're looking at any type of incentives and building a product type that doesn't really existing in OKC yet (concrete mid-rise/high-rise multifamily). Getting a bank to buy into that is not as easy as people seem to think it is. I don't think people realize how long developers work in a quite phase in normal operations before they announce projects. They don't get that luxury when it is a project on public land. It isn't uncommon for a project like this to take 2-3 years to get off the ground in a market like Dallas, let alone in OKC. People need to have more realistic expectations on here. Rent levels are just now at a tipping point where concrete construction is legitimately feasible in both Tulsa and OKC.

Well said. Most people who aren’t in the business don’t understand.