Midtown

[The Old Downtown Guy]

Wine bar(s)? Jamba Juice? Smoothie King? You can address all those questions directly to Greg Banta or someone from his office tomorrow evening at Plaza Court. For all of your folks with no electricity, all the fabulous food being offered up by those fine Midtown restaurants should be really appealing. At this point, the event is still planned to go forward . . . based on the temp getting into the low 40s tomorrow. 5:30 to 8:30 . . . meet up at the Plaza Court lobby to have a beverage, check out some upcoming development from the Banta Company, Wiggin Properties and Marva Ellard and then get signed up for the food tour.

Hope to see all of you tomorrow evening.

[The Old Downtown Guy]

It doesn't look good for the Midtown event this evening. Plaza Court is still without power as is 1492. We will likely reschedule. Stay tuned . . . we'll keep you advised.

[metro]

Thanks ODG, I think it is smart by rescheduling, otherwise it will be a bad turnout. Let me know and I'll be there if I'm in town.

[The Old Downtown Guy]

We are talking about moving the event to spring and do it up big. There will be at least two more restaurants by then. . . . may do more of a "Taste of Midtown" public event with sponsors, music, vendors etc. on a Saturday afternoon and early evening with a VIP pre-tasting on Friday evening.

Also, Anna Davis at Cafe do Brazil is talking about doing something with 1492 for Cinco de Mayo next year . . . street festival, music etc. . . . should be fun.

[BoulderSooner]

well i'm sad that the weather stopped this for happening .. but the event your talking about would be great ..

i am lucky i guess to have power as i only live a block east of 1492 ..

[metro]

Custom bridal shop opens in Midtown
The Journal Record
December 19, 2007

OKLAHOMA CITY – When Meg Guess decided to open a bridal shop to showcase her custom-made gowns, she looked around Oklahoma City before settling on an old eyeglass shop in Midtown.

The building, at 1227 N. Walker Ave., had been uninhabited for years and was in a state of disrepair. Fortunately the building was a project of Greg Banta’s Midtown Renaissance, which strives to revitalize and renovate old buildings in the Midtown area.

Guess’ shop, Meg Guess Couture, joined the newly opened 1492 restaurant along a stretch of Walker Avenue just north of the Plaza Court building that Banta has also renovated and is filling with retail tenants and a branch of the YMCA. The shop carries custom-made wedding dresses and custom bridal accessories handmade by Guess as well as wedding gowns from several top designers including Kenneth Pool and Peter Langner. Guess also sells her bridal gowns and accessories online.

Guess, who is self-taught in designing clothes, began designing items more than a decade ago and earned a bachelor’s degree in fashion marketing from the University of Central Oklahoma. Over the years she designed items for friends and family in addition to working at a bridal shop.

A desire to offer her unique dresses at a shop led Guess to set out on her own and offer an alternative to bridal wear shops in the area. “Traditional bridal wear is covered here,” she said. “The thing that I felt was needed was a bridal shop that girls were leaving here for and going to Dallas and New York and bigger cities for the fashion-forward bridal wear. That’s who I wanted to cater to.”

Many of Guess’ silk bridal dresses are designed specifically for a particular client and can take 150 to 200 hours to create and sew by hand. She described her dresses as having a more vintage look and the designs are only limited to a bride’s imagination and budget. “Usually the girls are my inspiration,” she said. The custom bridal dresses start at about $3,000 and go up to about $8,000. And rather than build a new shop or move to an existing established retail space, Guess saw potential in the dilapidated shop in Midtown and realized the potential as more businesses and people move into the area.

Her building is just over 2,000 square feet and features a shiny epoxy floor with gold highlights, and chic furnishings and fixtures selected by Guess. The exterior renovations were completed by the Banta Companies, which owns the building.

Ashleigh Heffernan, design and construction manager for Banta, has planned and overseen the renovation of several of the company’s Midtown buildings.The bridal shop is in a 1950s building, and while it is not listed on the National Historic Register, the goal, as with other Midtown properties, is to try to maintain and improve the existing buildings rather than razing them and starting over.

“Our goal is always to enhance the historic nature of the area,” Heffernan said. “It would have been much easier to have started fresh than to start with that building (but) these buildings have a historic presence and you don’t get that from new construction.”Heffernan said the bridal shop building had three layers of brick, two different floor levels and a crumbling roof that had to be adapted for the shop.

After renovation plans were approved by the city and a review board in Midtown, construction began in October. The shop opened late last week. For now Guess is running the store as a one-woman operation, but said she plans to hire more staff after the first of the year so she can devote the bulk of her time to creating and sewing custom wedding gowns.

In addition to wedding dresses and accessories Guess also designs dresses for formal events and any other occasion where someone might need a unique customized dress or gown.“All my gowns are so different,” she said. “They really are one-of-a-kind.”

[Doug Loudenback]

I drove by the place yesterday and today ... no camera with me ... several beautiful wedding gowns are in the windows facing Walker. Very nice.

[metro]

I got some 1492 to go for lunch today. The Gaijin Sushi place was coming along and they had several workers there. They were painting the "crown moulding" on the outside of the building an olive green type color. Also, along Walker workers were planting some trees. The work on the St. Anthony's/Devon Plaza is really shaping up now and it should be done in the near future.

[Doug Loudenback]

Such a nice afternoon ... good time to take some more pics! Mainly I was east of Santa Fe and those are being posted in that thread this afternoon but here are a couple of Midtowns ... the bridal shop and a Sieber pic. Click on links for larger views:

Bridal Shop on Walker
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a49...bridalshop.jpg


Sieber on Hudson
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a49..._07_sieber.jpg

[trison]

The way these buildings look is amazing. I am glad to see this area to continue to make progress.

[CrimsonOberon]

Sieber on Hudson
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a49..._07_sieber.jpg

Man.....
Seeing the Seiber looking like that.....

There's no words, man. Thanks for posting that pic.

[mecarr]

What is Sieber? Are those apartments?

[metro]

Originally the owners (Sieber) had their family grocery store on the first floor and lived on the second floor (see the smaller 2 story building on the right). Later on they used their profits to build the Sieber Hotel (the two mid-rises on the left). Now Marva Ellard (an urban preservationist) and her investors are restoring the structures to turn it into apartments and ground level retail. She was going to make them for sale units, but since government money was involved, the stipulations are that it become rental units for "x" amount of years. I believe they have to be rentals for 3 years if memory serves right. There are several threads on the Sieber if you do a search.

[The Old Downtown Guy]

It's all rental at this point. Apartments on the upper floors and retail in the ground level. I think a kitchen design showroom has signed a lease for a pretty good chunk of the first floor . . . may be located in the two story portion on the north.

[trison]

I was amazed to see brick layers working on the new Saint Anthony building on Sunday. The building is really moving along. Does anyone know when it is scheduled to be completed?

[metro]

I drove by on Walker today. The Midtown Update pics that were posted a few days ago in another thread are already outdated big time at St. Anthony's. They've already poured the concrete driveways, curbs, and sidewalks, and have now put up stone pillars every 10 feet or so (I'm assuming they'll put iron fencing in between them.

[The Old Downtown Guy]

I spoke with John McBryde about a week ago and he plans to have Prarie Thunder Bakery open by March 17th, Saint Patrick's Day. He is certain that he will make that date. McNellie's hoped to be serving green beer last year, but their space looks more like it will be ready to go in mid-2008. There are far too many construction delay issues associated with both of these eateries to bother talking about . . . and what's the point.

I read a couple of posts on another thread about parking at Plaza Court; construction parking is taking a lot of space and the lunch traffic is a lot of one person per vehicle . . . this is OKC remember. There is limited upper level parking at Plaza Court. At one time, a lot of the roof was just paved for additional parking, but most of that has been eleminated due to the structural damage it was causing to the building and the upper level parking is now only a few spaces at the top of the ramp on the north side of the building. There are still plenty of parking spots available in the surrounding parking lots, which are for the most part still unrestricted at this point, but that could start to change this summer. Evening parking is much less of an issue.

The Midtown Redevelopment Corp. has suggested to the City that it better use the existing existing fleet of rubber tire trolleys to create a new route from downtown to Plaza Court . . then east to The HSC . . . south and west to Deep Deuce . . . across the new Walnut Avenue bridge into Bricktown and back west into downtown. This is roughly the route associated with the streetcar proposal from the recent "Fixed Guideway Transit Study". That could help a lot with the mid-day Plaza Court lunch crowd parking in the future and give the growing population of downtown dwellers a convenient public transit connection to surrounding employers, restaurants, entertainment and services.

[HOT ROD]

all sounds good ODG

[mecarr]

I haven't seen any work being done in several weeks for the Sushi restaurant, across from 1492. Ironically, the building to the other side of 1492 which is not even leased has been getting a lot of work done lately.

[trison]

I hear the Sushi Restaurant is tied up trying to get their permit from the city. You would think that they would want to get this opened so that they can collect their sales taxes.

[jbrown84]

Their Park Harvey location is coming along very nicely. Should be open in the next month.

[The Old Downtown Guy]

I haven't seen any work being done in several weeks for the Sushi restaurant, across from 1492. Ironically, the building to the other side of 1492 which is not even leased has been getting a lot of work done lately.

There was a major holdup during the icy weather, but the unifying crown moulding style cap that all of the buildings in this strip except 1492 now share seems to be that task at hand which seems to be pretty much complete. The entrance doors haven't been installed and there is obviously a lot of interior work yet to complete. Looks like a late spring opening. Still a long way to go on the building north of 1492.

[metro]

What the heck do they mean Automobile Alley is almost finished, it's not even a destination yet. There are tons of boarded up buildings yet to be leased out. Hopefully more restaurants and much needed retail will come to fruition there. Typical Oklahoman article.

Midtown Update: Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Oklahoman

Automobile Alley is almost finished; more is planned for MidTown
Steve Mason's redevelopment of the 1000 block of N Broadway in Automobile Alley is nearing completion.

Corporate offices for his two companies — Cardinal Engineering and Earl's Rib Palace — are scheduled to move into the 1015 N Broadway building by March 1.

Bicycle Alley and Coffee Slingers (which Mason promises will offer "high quality coffee prepared by a trained barista”) will open in the building's first floor within the next few weeks.

Cricket Communications, meanwhile, is scheduled to open at a renovated 1001 N Broadway by April 1.

Mason has altered plans for the reopening of the Iguana Mexican Grill, however, after discovering more extensive roof damage than expected in the 1015 N Broadway building.

The restaurant now is scheduled to open at 9 NW 9 by June.

From Staff Reports

[jbrown84]

What the heck do they mean Automobile Alley is almost finished, it's not even a destination yet. There are tons of boarded up buildings yet to be leased out. Hopefully more restaurants and much needed retail will come to fruition there. Typical Oklahoman article.

Not really. More restaurants and retail would be great, but there is really very little left that is sitting empty and "boarded up", as you say. In fact, I can't think of a single building on Broadway that is literally boarded up.

[shane453]

It's referring only to Steve Mason's developments, not to AA as a whole.