Midtown

[floater]

This area north of the CBD is home to churches, the St. Anthony campus, small businesses, historic buildings and the old Mercy Hospital site. Its bordered by NW 5th to the south, NW 13th to the north, Classen to the west, and Robinson to the east. Many properties within the district are blighted if not undeveloped.

What should go in it? Planners want to turn NW 10th into a medical corridor that connects St. Anthony to the Presbyterian Research Park. There's still talk of turning that Mercy site into housing.

Midtown seems to be the place where a neighborhood could flourish. A neighborhood of brownstones, townhouses, and 2-3 story condos and apartment buildings. An elementary school would bring in younger families. A central town square or mall connected to a commercial district down Walker or Robinson into downtown could make it a great transition area between the CBD and Heritage Hills.

So I would go with residential. What would you guys put in it?

[Patrick]

I'm with you floater! I think we need to go residential in that area! I know the old Mercy Hospital is gone now, but we need to go ahead and go forward with plans to develop that site. The former developer pulled out. Urban Renewal needs to seek requests for developing that site. I prefer town houses or condos, just because more young professionals are looking to buy downtown, and we're already getting a lot of apartment developments going in downtown! Maybe even extending Heritage Hills south, and building some new mannsions downtwon would be an option. Who says that all of the millionaires have to live in Nichols Hills, Gaillardia, or Edmond. With more affluent people living downtown, we'd have a better shot at landing more upscale stores, and maybe even a Galleria type shopping center!

In my opinion, the entire periphery surrounding downtown should be housing! As a fellow friend of ours once said, retail follows rooftops!