Eastland Hills Mobile Home Park Closing

[grandshoemaster]

I have knowledge that the Eastland Hills mobile home park (not to be confused with the RV park) is closing at the end of the year. This is where it gets interesting. The RV park owner said that the mobile home park was sold to the city of Midwest City in the 80's. I though that this area was Oklahoma City limits. Maybe it is. Anyways, can someone shed some light on this and tell me if this is OKC or MWC? Because if it's MWC, there could be some development there in the future.

[bombermwc]

Where is that at? We can always look it up on assesor's website to see the owner history.

I wonder if it's actually the hospital authority that bought it though. They're sort of the "business front" for the city for all sorts of projects. IE buying Sooner Rose Elementary....which if I remember ended up selling to someone else because the authority didn't include a short term lease option while the district waits for the bond issue to pass to build the new schools....they will pay a whopping $1 a year for the lease.

Anyway, but the authority buys stuff as the "backer" and then the city is able to do what they want with a free brush stroke. It's a bit squirlley and smart....depends on which end of it you're on.

[rok80]

I live in Eastland Hills Mobile Home Park and Midwest City bought it 6 yrs ago and they tryed to build the new Super Wal Mart here but OKC told them they would condem the land if they did, that's Midwest City built it on 23rd. OKC still owns the land. Midwest City got other trailer parks ready to take our trailers but two of the parks are in Star Spencer School district and my kids will not go there. We got to be out by January 31 2012.

[rok80]

I heard that MWC is going to put a strip mall in here now, like MWC needs another strip mall. They can't even get people to lease other buildings that they have put up or even tryed to clean up I will not spend anymore of my money in MWC anymore.

[bombermwc]

Well to be fair, MWC isn't building anything. MWC isn't in the business of being a landlord. They lease out the LAND for commercial development.

IE - Town Center. The hospital authority (not really the city, but under the table it is) owns the land and has Sooner Investments handle the deal of developing, maintaining, etc the facilities. It's totally commercial development so if someone wants to build a strip mall, the city doesn't have anything to do with it. They can deny a building permit, but why? Whether the building is empty or not, the city still collects property/corporate tax from the leasing company.

And as for "cleaning up", that's totally up to the owner/leasing company. If they have tenants, you probably aren't going to see anything happen. The city can't force them to paint a building or put on a new facade or anything. As long as they meet code, they are fine. That's how the laws work...and that's how you want them to work. You don't want the city to play king and be able to come in and do whatever they want. It's a pro-con, but i think the pros faaaaaar outweigh cons on that front. It's market driven like everything else in a capitalist economy. When 29th became a reality, you saw just about every strip center within a mile in MWC revamping or even refacading to make themselves more attractive to tenants. They even built a couple more. So if the market requires it, it's done. If it's not happening somewhere, then that means that the market didn't make it happen...ie the tenants still came in and paid what they were asked.

I'm still not sure where this place is. Can someone give me an intersection?

[BoulderSooner]

Well to be fair, MWC isn't building anything. MWC isn't in the business of being a landlord. They lease out the LAND for commercial development.

IE - Town Center. The hospital authority (not really the city, but under the table it is) owns the land and has Sooner Investments handle the deal of developing, maintaining, etc the facilities. It's totally commercial development so if someone wants to build a strip mall, the city doesn't have anything to do with it. They can deny a building permit, but why? Whether the building is empty or not, the city still collects property/corporate tax from the leasing company.

And as for "cleaning up", that's totally up to the owner/leasing company. If they have tenants, you probably aren't going to see anything happen. The city can't force them to paint a building or put on a new facade or anything. As long as they meet code, they are fine. That's how the laws work...and that's how you want them to work. You don't want the city to play king and be able to come in and do whatever they want. It's a pro-con, but i think the pros faaaaaar outweigh cons on that front. It's market driven like everything else in a capitalist economy. When 29th became a reality, you saw just about every strip center within a mile in MWC revamping or even refacading to make themselves more attractive to tenants. They even built a couple more. So if the market requires it, it's done. If it's not happening somewhere, then that means that the market didn't make it happen...ie the tenants still came in and paid what they were asked.

I'm still not sure where this place is. Can someone give me an intersection?

behind the dennys at dougles and I-40 pretty much half way to post ..

[bombermwc]

OOOOh, ok. I seem to remember the city buying up that land in the first place to keep Integris from getting it. There were plans for an East OC hospital. And of course the MWC folks didn't want the competition for MRMC. Wal-Mart came up as a secondary from that from what I heard. Although I think it's rather funny now that St. Anthony is building just across the highway..lol. MRMC is (and has been) on the downward slide ever since it was leased out and everyone knows it (including the physicians). It's hilarious how many local physicians in the Mid-Del area don't pursue rights there and opt instead for OU. They can slap on how ever many floors they want on the place, but I still wouldn't take my dog there.

[rok80]

bombermwc you didn't read everything the park is in OKC not MWC, MWC owns the park not the land it's OKC

[grandshoemaster]

Do you have anymore info on this strip mall?

[bombermwc]

I realize it's in OKC. If you were reading what I said, I said the Hospital Authority. If you watch how they do things, they are a puppet for the city of MWC. They are how the city of MWC acts beyond it's borders. As MWC sees it, to protect itself and it's businesses. The entire Town Center was built in this way....

FYI - too, Wal-Mart actually approached MWC about turning the Reno-Midwest store into a super center. MWC told them no because of the requirement for the number of parking spaces available per square foot of retail space. Unless they would have purchased Albertson's at that time (which was still open), they couldn't build there. That's why you see the super center in Del City. DC was willng to work with them to make something happen, and it's been great for them. In either case, it would have been mutually exclusive to builing the one on 29th east of Douglas. Wal-Mart got the better end of the deal where it is in DC. Higher population density, better proximity to MULTIPLE highway exits (instead of just Douglas), etc. That's why it's one of the most profitable stores.