Mel's garage

[betts]

On 9th and Broadway:

I was just told today that this building was purchased by Steve Mason. It has a lot of potential, and I'm hoping he does only minimal exterior renovation. I also noticed a sign on the building just east of Sara Sara that says it will house a store named BD Home. I don't know if that will be a store that sells home decorating products, a designer or what, but it doesn't appear to be a restaurant.

[wsucougz]

That's a key purchase. Maybe we'll see some lofts.

http://www.oklahomacounty.org/assess...TNO=R010966900

[Architect2010]

That's the building with all the ancient cars on the top floor! Are they a part of the auto shop? They look as if they've been up there forever.

[okclee]

It seems as if Auto Alley and Midtown is well on it's way to becoming a true urban area that many of us have been wishing for.

Thanks to Steve Mason and others like him with a true vision of a unique downtown.

[muzique808]

That's the building with all the ancient cars on the top floor! Are they a part of the auto shop? They look as if they've been up there forever.

I've wondered about those cars also. Does anyone know the story?

[onthestrip]

It seems as if Auto Alley and Midtown is well on it's way to becoming a true urban area that many of us have been wishing for.

Thanks to Steve Mason and others like him with a true vision of a unique downtown.

Im not sure if its well on its way. Things seem to be moving very slowly in that area even though it has all the potential to be a vibrant urban neighborhood. Props to Mason though as he seems to be one of the few that can actually make something happen.

[hoya]

Im not sure if its well on its way. Things seem to be moving very slowly in that area even though it has all the potential to be a vibrant urban neighborhood. Props to Mason though as he seems to be one of the few that can actually make something happen.

The fact that anything is happening at all in this economy is a good sign. Most cities have nothing going on right now.

[Urbanized]

I've wondered about those cars also. Does anyone know the story?

I don't think there is much of a story other than the fact that Mel is a collector. He's accumulated those cars over the years. Some of them he has restored, some left as-is. Throughout the years he has let them be used in parades and elsewhere, but for the most part I think he just collects. He was nice enough to show me around in there about 10 years ago, and the collection is really impressive. If I remember right, he had a fondness for Dodge and Chrysler products.

I never had that many dealings with him, but he was always a nice, congenial guy. People I know who know him well think a lot of him. I think he has been offered on that building a number of times, but it suited his purposes, and I think he was just waiting for the right situation to come along. He told me at the time that he knew the building would be used for something else one day, but he wasn't in any hurry. Sounds like he felt the time was right and liked what Steve is doing with 9th. As important as the building is to Steve's plan, I'll bet the yard across the street is equally important.

Also, the remarks made about "finally someone is doing something in Automobile Alley" are laughable. Those are obviously made by people unfamiliar with how AA looked in the late '90s. That district has has huge successes over the past decade plus, from a lot of focused individuals and organizations who have invested tens of millions of dollars. The building rehabilitations and office developments down there might not be as sexy as Iguana, but they set the table for what is being done today. The first person who will tell you that is probably Steve Mason.

[Steve]

Mason is the first to say that he is building on a legacy well established by the Salyers, Nick Preftakes and Mark Ruffin, Rand Elliott and others. Without their work, he argues, he couldn't have contemplated doing what he is doing today. This is a story about multiple creative visions, and not just one.

[CCOKC]

I have attended some beer and wine tasting at the Broadway Wine Merchants. (There is one this Friday btw). They are held on the second floor in a cool space (if you use your imagination of course). I wonder how many other cool spaces are on Broadway that could be turned into some nice urban lofts relatively easily and made affordable for the hip young ones we are trying to attract or keep here in OKC?

[DelCamino]

Also, the remarks made about "finally someone is doing something in Automobile Alley" are laughable. Those are obviously made by people unfamiliar with how AA looked in the late '90s.....

I was involved with public projects at the time. These are some of my pics - the before are from 1998 and the after, from 2007. Not all that long ago....





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[Pete]

Wow!!

Thanks for sharing those Del. Sometimes we all forget how much has already been done in the central core.

[Steve]

Del! I'd love to get your whole series of photos on my OKC Central blog and OKC History. Contact me if you don't mind (I know who you are) - 740-4139

[DelCamino]

Wow!!

Thanks for sharing those Del. Sometimes we all forget how much has already been done in the central core.

Yep.

[DelCamino]

Del! I'd love to get your whole series of photos on my OKC Central blog and OKC History. Contact me if you don't mind (I know who you are) - 740-4139

lol. Did Kim sell me out??

[DelCamino]

Mel's has a great old fashioned vertical sign that hangs on the front of the building. Hopefully Steve M. can retrofit it, update the neon and utilize it for whatever goes in the building.

[Urbanized]

I have a number of photos that are from '96-'97. The pictures DelCamino posted, as ugly as the befores are, are SHOCKINGLY better than '96-'97. If you had some from '95, THEY would be shockingly tougher to look at than '96-'97. Nearly every building on Broadway had its windows blown out or at least broken by the bombing. Many of them had structural damage.

In the BEFORE pictures posted above, there are a number of buildings that had already been rehabilitated since the bombing. Most had seen their windows replaced. The Magnolia Petroleum Building had already seen a Rand Elliott-designed rehab. That building originally housed a service station drive-through on the ground level. Over the years it had been enclosed and was a used office furniture store. During the bombing, it was heavily damaged, windows blown out, mechanicals jarred loose from the ceiling. The Salyers struck a deal with a bank to lease the ground floor as a drive-through, and Rand designed a wonderful adaptive re-use that returned the building to its historic drive-through ground floor configuration. Meg and Chris later spent a TON of money on putting historically-correct wooden double-hung windows in the building, instead of taking the cheaper, easier route with non-historically-appropriate ones.

The St. Nicholas Hotel, once the residence of Clarence Page and now home to Schelgel Bicycles, was gutted by fire some months after the bombing. If any building was an arguable candidate for tear-down, that was the one. Today it is a great office building with a really cool retail space downstairs. THAT building is already mostly re-habbed in the "before" pictures. By the way, it's also a Salyer-owned building, one of several they poured their effort and money into over the years.

807 N. Broadway, which houses the DeskPlus store in the after photo, won an Oklahoma Main Street statewide award for best facade revovation the year after it was renovated.

There are about a dozen other MAJOR projects, totalling tens of millions of dollars in private investment, that have occurred in Automobile Alley since 1996 that aren't even visible in those photos.

Again, statements along the lines of "finally somebody is doing something in Automobile Alley" are laughable. Well, they'd be laughable if they weren't so damned insulting to the many owners, investors, business tenants, volunteers and City employees who put passion, hard work and tons of cash into the district over the past 14 years.

I'm sorry, but people who think that rebuilding a decades-neglected inner city neighborhood only requires a desire to do so and a snap of the fingers are absolutely clueless.

[Urbanized]

Mel's has a great old fashioned vertical sign that hangs on the front of the building. Hopefully Steve M. can retrofit it, update the neon and utilize it for whatever goes in the building.

Automobile Alley actually has an incentive grant fund in place, funded by the Oklahoma City Community Foundation, that provides matching funds for approved signs, provided they are neon. That's the main reason for all of the great neon signs lining Broadway. I'm pretty certain Steve utilized that for the great Cardinal Engineering sign on his building.

I'd say the chances are probably pretty good that he does just what you suggest.

[OKCTalker]

TERRIFIC before/after pics!