Midtown

[Steve]

Mid-town is not shaping up as well as Deep Deuce. But betts is right, if someone wants to talk about a mix of ALL uses, let's have a chat about retail...

I'd say it's premature to make that judgment, just as it would have been premature five years ago to say whether Deep Deuce was going to meet expectations. Remember, Deep Deuce got its start in 1999 while MidTown didn't get started until 2005. That's a six-year head start. Based on what I'm tracking, I'd suggest giving it a few years and then deciding whether MidTown is or is not shaping up well.

[Spartan]

Steve, I don't doubt that at all. But here's what we know at this point. At this point, there are about to be several actual street corners in Deep Deuce that will be completely surrounded by new development. If you stand at Walnut or Oklahoma and 2nd two years from now, you will have a very strong sense of place. You will be immersed by an urban neighborhood. There won't be a single Mid-town street corner quite there yet, for at least 5 years. Right now Mid-town feels immersed by parking lots and weeds, with a few gems in between. Mid-town feels disconnected with a primary hub at 10th and Walker and then other tertiary hot spots here and there. It still hasn't come together. So if we're talking about an urban neighborhood, right now, Deep Deuce is it. Mid-town will be impressive if it keeps its momentum, and I hope that other initiatives give Mid-town the same amount of attention that the streetcar project has given it.

A difference is that Mid-town is huge. It's an area that spans from Classen to Broadway, from 13th to, 5th or 6th-ish. It feels like it is a collection of many smaller neighborhoods, and perhaps once Mid-town gets going, we will become more familiar with names like Church Row, SoSA, Plaza Court, and what could become future sub-district names.

[Steve]

Let's take your comment and go back in time to 2007.... and let's just replace the word MidTown with Deep Deuce:

"Right now (Deep Deuce) feels immersed by parking lots and weeds, with a few gems in between. (Deep Deuce) feels disconnected with a primary hub at (2nd and Central) and then other tertiary hot spots here and there. It still hasn't come together."

Spartan, patience my friend... things are moving forward....

[Spartan]

Steve, not disagreeing that Mid-town is just 5 years behind, but 5 years is a real difference. But again, I think the vastness of Mid-town is another difference. Deep Deuce is a lot more concentrated, and more comparable in size to one of the smaller sub-districts that make up Mid-town.

*Also, 5 years ago, Deep Deuce did not have a few gems in between. It had the apartment project, and then most of the infill has happened on abandoned sites. By a few gems in between, I mean Plaza Court here, Robinson/Church Row there, Federal Bldg there, and so on, but all very disconnected. In Mid-town, almost all of the development has been in the form of renovation and re-use.

I know it's splitting hairs, but I just want to be precise in describing what I see happening in Mid-town, and I think we'll like it a lot in the future, but we might also be surprised at how different it is from Deep Deuce.

[Steve]

I look forward to us having this conversation again in five years. I enjoy these discussions ....

[BoulderSooner]

go to 11th and walker right now .. and you have a very full "urban feel" and in 2or 3 years you will likely have a nice hotel on that corner to go with the existing buildings

[gracefor24]

Steve, not disagreeing that Mid-town is just 5 years behind, but 5 years is a real difference. But again, I think the vastness of Mid-town is another difference. Deep Deuce is a lot more concentrated, and more comparable in size to one of the smaller sub-districts that make up Mid-town.

*Also, 5 years ago, Deep Deuce did not have a few gems in between. It had the apartment project, and then most of the infill has happened on abandoned sites. By a few gems in between, I mean Plaza Court here, Robinson/Church Row there, Federal Bldg there, and so on, but all very disconnected. In Mid-town, almost all of the development has been in the form of renovation and re-use.

I know it's splitting hairs, but I just want to be precise in describing what I see happening in Mid-town, and I think we'll like it a lot in the future, but we might also be surprised at how different it is from Deep Deuce.

Totally agree with this. It's hard to feel it in Midtown because there is so much space. 11th street doesn't feel urban at all to me. There are tons of empty lots, parking lots, and hardly any street life there.

Deep Deuce feels much different because the lots that are filling with Level and Aloft really complete the space between the CBD and the Deep Deuce Apartments. That doesn't even include the 4th street lofts. With that you can actually walk from the CBD to Sage and feel like you are walking a lively neighborhood rather than walking through a block with more parking lots than buildings.

The Mercy site will help a lot but to the east there will still be mass amounts of empty land in Midtown. They are just hard comparisons because the size and scope is so much different in Deep Deuce.

Once the 4th street lofts are done you will have buildings on the streetfronts of Oklahoma, 3rd street, and 2nd street. If something happened with the church you would really be close to finishing out the neighborhood.

I think Midtown as a whole is a 10-15 years away from being truly urban.

[Spartan]

Windows will be good.

[Spartan]

Totally agree with this. It's hard to feel it in Midtown because there is so much space. 11th street doesn't feel urban at all to me. There are tons of empty lots, parking lots, and hardly any street life there.

Deep Deuce feels much different because the lots that are filling with Level and Aloft really complete the space between the CBD and the Deep Deuce Apartments. That doesn't even include the 4th street lofts. With that you can actually walk from the CBD to Sage and feel like you are walking a lively neighborhood rather than walking through a block with more parking lots than buildings.

The Mercy site will help a lot but to the east there will still be mass amounts of empty land in Midtown. They are just hard comparisons because the size and scope is so much different in Deep Deuce.

Once the 4th street lofts are done you will have buildings on the streetfronts of Oklahoma, 3rd street, and 2nd street. If something happened with the church you would really be close to finishing out the neighborhood.

I think Midtown as a whole is a 10-15 years away from being truly urban.

Deep Deuce will be a showcase neighborhood, very soon. Mid-town will probably have some nice parts, but it's so huge that it will still (perhaps always) have a few "untouched parts" as we say. There will not be another neighborhood like Deep Deuce in all of Oklahoma.

[Pete]

Midtown will get there and will eventually be the best place to live and go out in all of OKC, IMO.

However, as excited as I get from following all this activity, I'm always shocked when I get back there to visit and actually drive around the area. A huge percentage is comprised of surface parking and vacant lots. Even if every bit of building stock was renovated and several new projects were added, there would still be as many gaps as structures. Frankly, all this recent progress just underscores how incredibly bad this area has been -- on a very large scale -- for decades.

When Midtown fills in and the CBD and Auto Alley all grow together and start to be a little more seamless, then we'll really have something. 10-15 years is probably what it's going to take but of course, there is already plenty of reason to go/live there now. But it's certainly not a place that makes you want to get out and walk around.


Deep Deuce is going to feel somewhat complete with the finish of just the projects that are already underway. It's also the only place I've ever walked in OKC and felt like I was in an emerging urban neighborhood. It is going to be a very special place, and soon.

[Spartan]

Very well said, Pete. I am really amazed, looking back, that we never thought Mid-town was that bad. I don't think we realized just how bad it was. To us, it was just the area between downtown and Heritage Hills, how could that be Skid Row? Skid Row was somewhere else. In fact, when you realize how bad the other areas were that kept us from realizing how bad Mid-town was, you have to wonder if we had ANYTHING going for ourselves back then. Bricktown was hardly desirable, Film Row was Skid Row, Deep Deuce was just crappy greenfield mowed over by ODOT, and so on. This underscores the progress, the possibility that we are just now realizing how bad Mid-town was.

Now Deep Deuce is pretty awesome. Bricktown is over-glorified, but still pretty good, could be really amazing though. Mid-town is another huge area that is emerging. Film Row just came out of nowhere. This is the undeniable state of downtown today. So, please take all of mine and other like-minded's criticisms in the proper context. We take for granted what we have now, but we shouldn't get complacent either because a really awesome urban city is right within sight--so close it's hard not to expect it now.

[Pete]

I don't think it's possible to overstate how awful things were in Central OKC in the 80's and 90's. I remember the Gazette had a little cartoon sometime in the late 80's that said, "What can you say about a town where the only construction downtown is a new jail?" It really stuck in my mind because it was 100% painfully true!! Not only downtown but Midtown and really everywhere else but perhaps Memorial Road.

People forget the Skirvin was closed for decades! Closed!! As was Plaza Court, for goodness sake. And those are beautiful, valuable, iconic structures... So you can imagine the state of just about everything else. Auto Alley was beyond pathetic, Deep Deuce was a crack zone, The Paseo was in pretty shabby and mostly vacant shape, 23rd Street looked like something out of Detroit... I could go on and on.

I agree, I don't think anybody really realized or wanted to talk about how bad things were back then because they were just huge areas that nobody cared about. Most people never even saw them anyway. And I don't even remember anyone calling the area 'Midtown' or 'Deep Deuce' or 'Auto Alley', other than maybe a few people that were trying to market some rag-tag properties. Those were just areas of town that were easily avoided and pretty much forgotten.

To illustrate this point further -- and this just now occurred to me -- I was a commercial real estate broker throughout the 80's in OKC and can't remember anyone in my office even considering listing any of the buildings in any of the areas I mentioned. My company (Coldwell Banker Commercial, at the time) was by far the biggest in town yet we never even drove through those areas, much less tried to market them. It's incredible now that I think about it.


But looking back, here we have dozens and dozens of great renovation and infill projects with tons more in the works and there are *still* huge gaps in every direction. I think only with this progress can we really get a handle on how incredibly bad things had become -- so bad the city had to pay St. Anthony to not move to the southside!


I really believe that when DD is nice and solidified -- and this will happen in about a year -- that will help Midtown and some of these other areas greatly. At least people in OKC will see what is possible and be willing to get out in front of some of these trends by being pioneers themselves.

[Steve]

http://blog.newsok.com/okccentral/20...perspective-2/

[Spartan]

I think only with this progress can we really get a handle on how incredibly bad things had become

This is a beautiful paradox. All of this begs the question... we know it was bad, but this is a question that nobody has dared to ask, still: What if we were, perhaps, the worst inner city in America? I mean, even DT Detroit has at least one bright spot and some new projects here and there, because it is an urban city. OKC had completely abandoned its inner city, totally, and was no longer an urban city. I don't just mean blight, crime, craziness, etc., but perhaps something worse: nothingness. There was no real "community" whatsoever that used downtown, it was just a worthless, washed-up, devoid of life vacuum.

I feel pretty confident that we can make the OKC-80s-90s-sob story sound worse than the worst sob stories from Detroit, Fort Wayne, Gary, Buffalo, Cleveland, Newark, etc. I've been to Buffalo and Cleveland and those are actually awesome cities. Some crackpot publication named Grand Rapids the worst city in America, and that is definitely not true either, though I've never been. Just be thinking about it hard, it seems plausible that OKC could have been one of the worst cities, even though we never got a nationwide "mini Detroit" rap.

[CCOKC]

This discussion is really starting to make me excited. We signed the lease on an office space today in Midtown. It's at 9th and Robinson so it is technically in Midtown but only a block from Auto Alley and the new Hideway Pizza. We have wanted to move to Midtown for 4 years and finally bit the bullet and did it. Now I just have to convince my clients that I am not downtown.

[betts]

It was really bad, I can vouch. We lived near downtown in Denver and when we moved here and saw the downtown I was totally appalled. I remember when the Spaghetti Warehouse opening up in Bricktown was a big deal and it was about all that was open in Bricktown or downtown. I do remember the Newport and Aunt Pittypats in Midtown, though.

[lasomeday]

This discussion is really starting to make me excited. We signed the lease on an office space today in Midtown. It's at 9th and Robinson so it is technically in Midtown but only a block from Auto Alley and the new Hideway Pizza. We have wanted to move to Midtown for 4 years and finally bit the bullet and did it. Now I just have to convince my clients that I am not downtown.

Congratulations! What type of business do you have?

[Pete]

It's hard to compare to other cities but I can say there was almost zero New Urbanism until the 80's and it took a while for most cities to embrace it. The flight to the suburbs really started after the prosperity that followed WWII when everyone could afford a house and car. That and racial tension led to huge sections of most inner cities being abandoned which resulted in mostly ill-conceived urban renewal projects of the 60's and 70's. Oklahoma City had it worse than most places though, that's for sure.

I worked downtown from 1982 to 1989 and it wasn't horrible. Leadership Square opened in the mid-80's, First National Center was actually pretty vibrant, etc. It was really the late 80's and early 90's when things turned bleak in the CBD, yet still most the bigger buildings stayed pretty full.


It is sometimes shocking to not only think how bad things had become in the areas surrounding the CBD but also how nobody even seemed to notice or care for the longest time.

I hate to say it but even in the 80's and most of the 90's there wasn't a lot of new blood coming into OKC and there was nothing like the internet and all the various communication channels we have now to make people realize 1) things are bad, and 2) there are better ways.

We were just slow to gain the proper perspective which is why we are still playing catch-up in so many ways.

[CCOKC]

My husband and I own an accounting practice that does about 1/3 taxes, 1/3 business compilation/payroll etc and 1/3 audit services.

[lasomeday]

I don't think anyone would have any problems driving downtown. Well, maybe the Edmond customers. They complain about crossing Memorial Rd. from my experience.

I used to be an auditor. You will really like being close to the capitol and the law firms downtown. We were constantly taking trips to law offices downtown.

[Pete]

If I was a small business looking for a location, Automobile Alley and Midtown would be my top choices.

They are relatively affordable, easily accessible from anywhere in the Metro and there is plenty of free parking. And from an employee standpoint, there are lots of great restaurants nearby, with plenty to do after work.

[Spartan]

It's hard to compare to other cities but I can say there was almost zero New Urbanism until the 80's and it took a while for most cities to embrace it. The flight to the suburbs really started after the prosperity that followed WWII when everyone could afford a house and car. That and racial tension led to huge sections of most inner cities being abandoned which resulted in mostly ill-conceived urban renewal projects of the 60's and 70's. Oklahoma City had it worse than most places though, that's for sure.

I worked downtown from 1982 to 1989 and it wasn't horrible. Leadership Square opened in the mid-80's, First National Center was actually pretty vibrant, etc. It was really the late 80's and early 90's when things turned bleak in the CBD, yet still most the bigger buildings stayed pretty full.


It is sometimes shocking to not only think how bad things had become in the areas surrounding the CBD but also how nobody even seemed to notice or care for the longest time.

I hate to say it but even in the 80's and most of the 90's there wasn't a lot of new blood coming into OKC and there was nothing like the internet and all the various communication channels we have now to make people realize 1) things are bad, and 2) there are better ways.

We were just slow to gain the proper perspective which is why we are still playing catch-up in so many ways.

I think there is also a remarkable correlation between when a national trend in development emerges, spread across many cities, and when that trend makes it to OKC. This is the case with urban renewal--OKC hadn't undergone urban renewal at the time that it was initiated in other major cities, and after these cities recognized that folly and other cities were talking about what a bad experiment it was, OKC doubled down and persevered through a plan that eventually kept downtown out of the game for decades. I think there was probably some convincing reasons to back out, and there was probably a Chamber junta that had finally decided to do urban renewal after all these years, and was going to get it, come hell or high water. And thus, downtown was killed.

Not to go all Ed Shadid. I just like that phrase "Chamber of Commerce junta."

[CCOKC]

It's funny you mention Edmond clients. I did an examination of our clients and found that of our individual tax clients we had more clients from the Edmond zip codes than any other part of the metro. They didn't seem to mind driving to 14th and Council twice a year so I figure they won't mind it if I make their trip 20 minutes closer. I deal mostly with the business clients who could care less where we are since they e-mail or mail me their information every month.

[Pete]

OKC started urban renewal a little late and then HAD to do something. We cleared out more than half of the CBD and made all these super blocks, so something had to be put into them.

The Myriad plugged one big hole but even the Myriad Gardens took forever to get off the ground. Then that left the gaping hole that was to be the Galleria and by that time we had to do something with it, so we basically sold our soul to Vincent Carrozza who cherry-picked the best parcels for office development then skipped town without delivering a hotel or retail.

We couldn't even find a developer for a huge section of prime real estate in the middle of downtown... Most of that property was converted to surface parking, so you can imagine the lack of interest in Midtown and other surrounding districts.

I can't tell you much joy I experienced when the last of the Galleria surface parking was torn up for the Devon complex. I always viewed that lot as a ugly reminder of how bad things had been for so long.


I still worry that we are trying to ride too many horses with one behind in terms of all these burgeoning urban districts. For decades we didn't have one and now we are trying to bring 10 on-line all at once.

But, for the most part this is happening organically with lots of people involved who really seem to care about these neighborhoods. I'd just like to see us complete a couple of these areas and I know it's going to take time with Midtown.

[betts]

This discussion is really starting to make me excited. We signed the lease on an office space today in Midtown. It's at 9th and Robinson so it is technically in Midtown but only a block from Auto Alley and the new Hideway Pizza. We have wanted to move to Midtown for 4 years and finally bit the bullet and did it. Now I just have to convince my clients that I am not downtown.

That's great! And you'll be right on the streetcar line as well. Tell your clients what all their lunch and dinner dining options are within a five block radius and I think they'll be sold. Parking is easy on Robinson and there will be no confusing one-way streets anymore.