Chesapeake empire marches on

[metro]

Speaking of Manholes, I've really begin to notice a lot lately on Western and Classen and throughout downtown. First off, they are oddly placed, exactly where a car tire has to go; you'd think they'd be in the middle of a lane. Secondly, as you stated, they are unavoidable now, I'm hitting them more and more and they are getting deeper since the City hired these crappy contractors to do all this street repaving that is HORRIBLE.

[securityinfo]

More for historical reasons than any other, here is the current Google Maps image of the areas about CHK as they appeared I would guess between 3-5 years ago. I would love to see a current image as it stands now... Pete's overlays pretty much show that they have developed as intended.

Note the number of homes that used to be in the area... now they number on one hand... no big loss though (IMHO).

Kinda neat to see what it used to look like. I would love to have a shot like this from about 1998.

Comments?

[Pete]

Does anybody know what CHK is doing with all the condos they own around NH Plaza?

They own the large majority of Grandmark, Sherwood Arms, Nichols Hills Manor, and Kings Court. All these back up to NH Plaza South.

Are they leasing them out or are they sitting empty?



Also, some research on the county site showed they own all 23 of the units at Kings Court (the complex on 63rd street), 17 of 23 at Grandmark, 2 of 11 at NH Manor, and 29 of 31 at Sherwood Arms. In general, they have paid 3 to 5 times the market and/or last sales price for these units, representing almost $20 million in investment -- and will need to spend millions more to acquire the remaining units. Plus, they will likely just raze all these buildings, so they are paying tens of millions just for the land.

If you add in the cost for NH Plaza north and south, the gas stations, the rug shop and the church, etc., CHK has at least $70 million invested in just the NW corner of 63rd and Western. And there will be plenty more to come if they relocate NH City Hall, buy the one office building in the middle of NH Plaza... Plus development costs.

[metro]

Yeah, but that's chump change for what they would have spent on a tower, AND they are transforming that section of the City.

[circuitboard]

I would rather see them transform that area with a bunch of smaller buildings, over building one tower. That area needed some work and it is looking great!

[Pete]

that's chump change for what they would have spent on a tower

But this has nothing to do with their office buildings...

All this was done as an investment so they must have something very big planned for NH Plaza.


It's very difficult to imagine how they could ever come close to making their money back when you are talking about spending almost $100 million (when all is said and done) just for LAND -- they will no doubt need to scrape just about everything there to make redevelopment work.

I know it's not just about investment but they are a publicly held company and they have to be able to justify these huge expenditures.

[OKCTalker]

NH Plaza - There was a NH City Council meeting earlier this week and CHK applied to bulldoze the Kings Court condominiums on the N side of 63rd between Grand and Mamasita's.

[Pete]

Wow, why the heck would they want to raze those condos when nothing has been approved to go in their place??

They did the same thing with the Kensington apartments on Grand and now it's just a pile of red dirt where perfectly good (and occupied) apartments recently stood.

[OKCTalker]

Pete - How about cutting tax, insurance and maintenance expenses?

[Pete]

Yes, but Kensington was relatively full and generating income which had to offset any expenses.

And why not rent out Kings Court? Same principle applies there.


CHK has a history of scraping buildings and leaving the land scarred and vacant for long periods of time before ever building back. How is that good for the area and community in general?

Maybe they'll at least add parking where Kings Court once was but even so, I wish they'd stop tearing things down when they have no immediate plan to build.

[circuitboard]

I am excited to see what is up there sleeve. I wonder what they are planning.

[Pete]

I think they are still years away from doing anything major with NH Plaza.

Terrible time to try and lease retail space, plus I'm sure they want to fill Classen Curve first. That could take a couple of years in itself.


That's why I don't underway why they would be looking to pull down those condos. I have the feeling that will sit as a vacant lot for quite a while.

[mugofbeer]

Yes, but Kensington was relatively full and generating income which had to offset any expenses.

And why not rent out Kings Court? Same principle applies there.


CHK has a history of scraping buildings and leaving the land scarred and vacant for long periods of time before ever building back. How is that good for the area and community in general?

Maybe they'll at least add parking where Kings Court once was but even so, I wish they'd stop tearing things down when they have no immediate plan to build.

In a few words, liability, risk and attractive nuisance.

Once they build, what they build has been pretty nice though.

Not to mention the few thousand OKCitians they employ and the millions they donate to many causes around town.

[Spartan]

I think from CHK's perspective this pesky little recession is the only reason their NH plans aren't already finished..they're on a different level than this discussion.

[Jethrol]

Wow, why the heck would they want to raze those condos when nothing has been approved to go in their place??

I agree but you never know...they might have something already planned.

They did the same thing with the Kensington apartments on Grand and now it's just a pile of red dirt where perfectly good (and occupied) apartments recently stood.

True but consider what happened to the economy. They bought the units with a plan to rebuild something different...then the economy crashed. They may have bulldozed the buildings to save on taxes and believing that the economy would rebound quickly so they're just waiting for the right time to start that part of the expansion.

[Jethrol]

CHK has a history of scraping buildings and leaving the land scarred and vacant for long periods of time before ever building back. How is that good for the area and community in general?

With the building that they do afterwards, it more than offsets the down time.

[Jethrol]

In a few words, liability, risk and attractive nuisance.

Once they build, what they build has been pretty nice though.

Not to mention the few thousand OKCitians they employ and the millions they donate to many causes around town.

Excellent points and I agree....and FYI, I've heard the latest number of people working for CHK is 8,500.

[sroberts24]

took these on my phone yesterday

[Spartan]

Excellent points and I agree....and FYI, I've heard the latest number of people working for CHK is 8,500.

Most in Texas.

[Jethrol]

Most in Texas.

You can't be serious.

[Pete]

Of CHK's 8,000+ employees, only about 3,000 work at the OKC HQ.

[mugofbeer]

Of CHK's 8,000+ employees, only about 3,000 work at the OKC HQ.

And growing......

[mheaton76]

Does anybody know what CHK is doing with all the condos they own around NH Plaza?

They own the large majority of Grandmark, Sherwood Arms, Nichols Hills Manor, and Kings Court. All these back up to NH Plaza South.

Are they leasing them out or are they sitting empty?

Interesting that you bring this up, Pete. Driving back to work from lunch today, I noticed for the first time that they are starting to look rough around the edges. The awnings have not been kept up, none appeared occupied, and it looked like at least one of the buildings was being used for storage.

If they tear it down, that will be a noticeable lack of density. In fact, I kind of miss the older buildings they recently tore down on their main campus. Density up to the street level has such visual and aesthetic appeal - I fail to understand the obsession we have with such huge setbacks.

[OKCTalker]

mheaton - If you're talking about the Kings Court condos, they are all vacant and much of the exterior infrastructure (stair railings, HVAC compressors, carports) are either missing, removed or damaged. If this complex is removed and replaced with grass, a greenscaped opening will appear where you can see from 63rd into the SW/C of NH Plaza through a grove of pine trees (that sounds nicer than it will probably appear).

I disagree with Pete's assessment that this is either a setback or significant delay. It is a logical step towards the development of a large, complex multi-use project to replace several that currently exist. A fair metaphor is "rebuilding an airplane while in flight."

[Jethrol]

Of CHK's 8,000+ employees, only about 3,000 work at the OKC HQ.

In an article of Jan 2009, over 1 year ago, they said this:

The independent natural gas producer said in a statement Monday that it "eliminated less than 50 positions of over 3,300" at its Oklahoma City headquarters. The statement did not indicate if the company cut jobs at other locations or what kind of jobs were lost.

Chesapeake Says It Has Cut 50 Jobs in OKC Office - ABC News

CHK has continued to hire all through 2009 so I would be willing to bet the number has increased significantly.