Lawton - Major retail development under way

[Just the facts]

nm - dont want to derail this thread.

[venture]

nm - dont want to derail this thread.

Sometimes it is just not worth the energy. LOL

[LawtonButch]

New announcements made today. The hotel/convention center will be a 160 room Hilton Garden Inn with a 20,000 sq foot meeting space with groundbreaking in the spring of 2012. The developer (Partners in development) were apparently involved with the Skirvin in OKC. There is also talk of Northrup Grumman building an office building in the original location that the hotel was proposed to be built, moving the hotel to face 2nd street about a block north of Gore.

The news is also reporting that Kohl's is still going to be built along with several other firm commitments from other commercial retailers, although no names were mentioned.

Finally some new news, hopefully the dirt will move shortly.

[mcca7596]

Thanks for the updates, LawtonButch.

[Spartan]

Any updates on the groundbreaking of the downtown Hilton Garden Inn?

[Soonerman]

Is Lawton getting a Target?

[Spartan]

Well that's what I heard, but Target has only been opening like 10 stores a year since the recession.

[pure]

Just an update, the developer that did University Town Center in Norman is doing the Lawton project now. http://www.kswo.com/story/17061327/a...street-project

[Spartan]

Yikes.

[dj j2o]

Yikes.

It makes me sad that Lawton just doesn't seem to get it. Old buildings have far greater value than all of these new constructions that they tend to covet. They bulldozed all of downtown in the 70s to build a mall that could have been built anywhere under the guise that they were cleaning up the downtown area. If Oklahoma City thought that way then Bricktown, Downtown, Midtown, Paseo and the like would all be stripmalls. History is repeating itself and it seems that no one is ringing the alarm. Instead of trying to displace and bulldoze they should be truly revitalizing and giving incentives to current and potential business owners to remodel and reinvent current structures. Lawtonians seem to look at buildings and think "well it's not old enough to be considered historic..." so they tear it down and replace it with whatever cheap construction is the current standard. No building will ever be given a chance to be historic.

All of the younger people that I know in Lawton come to OKC and look at the areas previously mentioned and say things like "I wish we had something like this".

I graduated high school, college and my parents still live in Lawton. I've learned a lot living in OKC during this wonderful transformation/revitalization over the past decade or so. It borders on comical that the Lawton city leadership is saying that they are taking cues from the rebirth of downtown OKC. How much bulldozing did OKC do? Only thing I can think of is Deep Duece and I know a lot of people that are wishing they hadn't done that.

Lawton, please stop thinking like it is 1970! Your true growth depends on it.

[Spartan]

Well, to be fair, we also did an incredible amount of urban renewal in the 60s and 70s..and we are still paying the price in OKC.

But also, the area along 2nd Street didn't really have much historic building fabric anyway--was mostly vacant lots east of 2nd, right? The only building that should be saved is probably the old Bianco's. What's happening to them?

[fight4oku]

It makes me sad that Lawton just doesn't seem to get it. Old buildings have far greater value than all of these new constructions that they tend to covet. They bulldozed all of downtown in the 70s to build a mall that could have been built anywhere under the guise that they were cleaning up the downtown area. If Oklahoma City thought that way then Bricktown, Downtown, Midtown, Paseo and the like would all be stripmalls. History is repeating itself and it seems that no one is ringing the alarm. Instead of trying to displace and bulldoze they should be truly revitalizing and giving incentives to current and potential business owners to remodel and reinvent current structures. Lawtonians seem to look at buildings and think "well it's not old enough to be considered historic..." so they tear it down and replace it with whatever cheap construction is the current standard. No building will ever be given a chance to be historic.

All of the younger people that I know in Lawton come to OKC and look at the areas previously mentioned and say things like "I wish we had something like this".

I graduated high school, college and my parents still live in Lawton. I've learned a lot living in OKC during this wonderful transformation/revitalization over the past decade or so. It borders on comical that the Lawton city leadership is saying that they are taking cues from the rebirth of downtown OKC. How much bulldozing did OKC do? Only thing I can think of is Deep Duece and I know a lot of people that are wishing they hadn't done that.

Lawton, please stop thinking like it is 1970! Your true growth depends on it.

I agree that Lawton was stupid to tear down their historic downtown to build a mall. I wish they would consider tearing down the mall and start building lofts with ground floor retail. Unfortunately there isn’t a population base in Lawton that could fill downtown residential. Many of the Ft. Sill soldiers don’t make enough money to live in downtown lofts and the Cameron students are mostly commuters from southwest Oklahoma and live at home.

But also, the area along 2nd Street didn't really have much historic building fabric anyway--was mostly vacant lots east of 2nd, right? The only building that should be saved is probably the old Bianco's. What's happening to them?

The old Bianco’s building as well as Hoffman’s Bar are still standing. The remainder of 2nd street was just abandoned houses and empty lots that the city eminent domained and tore down. The city was doing itself a service to tear all of that down as there was no usefulness to those few abandoned homes anyway. The old Coke building had a fire not too long ago so they just went ahead and tore it down as well.

I think it could be interesting to try and revitalize the old creamery factory and build some residential back in the neighborhood on the east side of the mall to try and tie that area into downtown.

[Spartan]

Will Bianco's and Hoffman's remain standing when all is said and done along 2nd Street?

Thanks for the clarification, and welcome to the forums by the way

[fight4oku]

Will Bianco's and Hoffman's remain standing when all is said and done along 2nd Street?

Thanks for the clarification, and welcome to the forums by the way

I'm not really sure if they will stay when all is said and done. As far as I've heard Bianco's will likely go, but get relocated somewhere within the new development.

As far as Hofman’s I heard that they were a holdout on selling and the city was just letting them continue to operate until the development began taking shape (similar to how subway and O'connell's operated for years across from the stadium in Norman till the new dorm construction started). I wish I could substantiate these rumors as opposed to just spreading them, but I heard all of this prior to structures even being dozed on 2nd street.

Thanks for the welcome. I have been a reader on this site for two or three years prior to deciding to post.

[Bunty]

Is Lawton getting a Target?

Target was recently questioned when a new Target store was finally coming to Stillwater. Its location is supposed to be in a new strip center, still not under construction, at the SW corner of W. 6th and Country Club Rd. The answer back from Lisa Ellis, the Regional Real Estate Manager for Target, who handles new store acquisitions in Oklahoma was: "While we are interested in Stillwater as a long-term opportunity (perhaps within the next 3-5 years), we are not currently pursuing a specific site there."

So maybe the answer also applies to Lawton.

[fight4oku]

Target was recently questioned when a new Target store was finally coming to Stillwater. Its location is supposed to be in a new strip center, still not under construction, at the SW corner of W. 6th and Country Club Rd. The answer back from Lisa Ellis, the Regional Real Estate Manager for Target, who handles new store acquisitions in Oklahoma was: "While we are interested in Stillwater as a long-term opportunity (perhaps within the next 3-5 years), we are not currently pursuing a specific site there."

So maybe the answer also applies to Lawton.

I was talking to a family member that is fairly involved with commercial real-estate in Lawton yesterday when I first heard about Target going out on 82nd street. He said that the 2nd in command for Hunt developers out of Dallas had been working with Target for 4 years on the 82nd location in Lawton. He said that Target was only opening 12-13 stores nationwide, and that Lawton is definitely going to be one of those locations. He also said that Lawton is very under-developed with respect to its population base and that there probably aren’t but a few cities in the country as large as Lawton with so little development. The developer also said that the reason it’s taken so long to get to Lawton is that it’s just so far off the beaten path of the I-35 corridor between OKC and Dallas making distribution a little more complicated.

As far as the concerns in Lawton about poaching of retail from the 2nd street development to the 82nd street development, they may have some merit. However, the city has negotiated some contracts with some department of defense companies to put offices on 2nd street and is currently attempting to court more companies to do the same. While I don’t really know what companies have signed on and which are being recruited at this point, it only makes sense with Ft. Sill being located in Lawton.