"Upscale" Development

[Questor]

You know I was thinking about all the recent retail development that has gone on around the metro and in the suburbs... how it is almost always billed as "upscale" these days in the marketing and press releases... but how really the only place I can think of that I really consider upscale is the Classen Curve. Going through my mind, UNP in Norman was billed that way but it's just a normal outdoor mall, all along Memorial various places have been billed as such but the area just strikes me as a nice part of the 'burbs, many places in Edmond kind of turned out the same way... really the only new development that hasn't disappointed was Classen.

Why is that? What is it that has happened on the Curve that no one else seems to be able to pull off? Is it because the area has the backing of a billionaire? Is it because the area is home to so much corporate activity and through traffic? Is it the surrounding demographics? The building codes/development? Or maybe it is a bit of all of these things? I'm just curious what people's thoughts are.

(By the way I kind of think of Nichols Hills Plaza and also most of Penn Square as upscale... I'm not saying that OKC doesn't have upscale areas... I am just referring to brand new development).

[stlokc]

"Upscale" is simply a marketing term, no more and no less. I love OKC but the fact is there just isn't enough money for more than a small percentage of properties to be truly "upscale." The real problem with OKC, as has been said before, is that our demographics are skewed. In a lot of cities, wealth is concentrated which funnels high-end shoppers into a couple of corridors close together. This allows the demographics to rise to the point where they hit the radar of high-end retailers. In OKC you have pockets of wealth with a lot of cookie-cutter in between. Take the area north of Memorial. You have some subdivisions of $500K houses but patio homes and $200K 2000SF numbers are positioned in between. There's no concentration. You do have a lot of wealth in and around Nichols Hills, which is why a Western Ave can come into being linking Crown Hts and points south to Chesapeake and points N and NW. But even across Memorial, which tries to hint at "upscale," there's a lot of economic disparity. You can't seem to go a mile or two without fast food, tire & auto places and the like. That atmosphere is not going to create truly high-level retail. But developers can splash some brick and a few trees around synthetic stucco and market it as "upscale." If Memorial road was lined with the highest- income parts of Edmond it could make a run at it. But I think the future of anything really high-end is in Nichols Hills Plaza, Classen Curve and maybe the Gallardia/Val Verde/Greens area. But I'm seeing a lot of proliferating Sonics out there too.

[metro]

Does Spring Creek in Edmond count?

[stlokc]

Yes, I think it does. That developer made a point to build a truly attractive center and landscape it properly.

[stlokc]

I know, gentle readers, that you will roll your eyes as I continually go back to St. Louis. But it's what I know. The "mid county Highway 40/64 corridor" is probably 30-40 square miles. Now, STL, proportioned for population, probably does not have more wealth than OKC, allowing for size. But for multiple reasons, a vast majority of the wealth in the metro area is concentrated in this corridor. Imagine if you will Heritage Hills and Crown Heights blending without interruption into Nichols Hills (on steroids) blending into Quail Creek and Val Verde, blending into the choicest parts of Edmond and west Norman. Maybe 100,000 people. If you're truly bored, and God help you if you are, Google Earth the city of Clayton and then follow Ladue Road west about 10-15 miles past 141, then scroll south to Clayton Road and follow it all the way east back into Clayton. The posh malls, the country clubs, both Whole Foods, every high-end retailer can be found in this one area or immediately adjoining a mile or two on either side. For most pf this area, they kept the roads two-laned and clustered development in only a few places. Thus making the prices so high that only upscale can exist. OKC has that level of wealth, but the pockmarked nature of development hides it. It is what it is.

[MDot]

^^I don't really see why anyone would mind for you to keep alluding to St. Louis, that's a nice city that OKC could learn a lot from. While it would take years to concentrate its wealth to a certain corridor, I suppose it's possible. I really wish OKC had an inner city the way STL does, even though OKC is bigger than St. Louis, St. Louis feels like it's about 2 or 3 times larger just by how concentrated certain areas are. It seems as though Oklahoma City is taking baby steps in the correct direction if you look at areas such as Classen Curve.

[progressiveboy]

St. Louis has a lot of gentrified, neighborhoods that are quite nice. It is a city that has a lot of old money especially LaDue in the central part of the city and I also like University City which is quite diverse and close to the zoo if I am correct.LaCledes landing in downtown is a fun area and I love what they did to the old Fox Theatre in Downtown St. Louis.

[jbkrems]

Progressiveboy, LaDue is NOT all "old money." My parents live in Ladue, and they do not hav "old money." It is definitely similar to Nichols Hills here in OKC area, but its not the same. I grew up in St. Louis, specifically Ladue. I went to Ladue High School and graduated from there.

[ljbab728]

St. Louis has also been around for a year or two more than OKC so it had a chance to develop it's inner area a little differently before transit patterns changed so significantly.

[mcca7596]

St. Louis has also been around for a year or two more than OKC so it had a chance to develop it's inner area a little differently before transit patterns changed so significantly.

That's true, but in 80 years from 1889 to 1969, a pretty darn good, dense downtown was built for a city of just 350,000 or so in 1970. I mean, I think it was pretty established even before the huge proliferation of automobiles in the 50s. No other city destroyed quite so much of what they had as Oklahoma City did during Urban Renewal.

[stlokc]

I agree with all that has been said about St. Louis. I know lots of people from Ladue and it has "old" money and "new" money and even some stately upper-middle-class areas. And U City, Grand, Lafayette Square, areas etc are very cool and dense. But I didn't mean to get so far off-topic, so let's steer this back to OKC.

[Skyline]

I know, gentle readers, that you will roll your eyes as I continually go back to St. Louis. But it's what I know. The "mid county Highway 40/64 corridor" is probably 30-40 square miles. Now, STL, proportioned for population, probably does not have more wealth than OKC, allowing for size. But for multiple reasons, a vast majority of the wealth in the metro area is concentrated in this corridor. Imagine if you will Heritage Hills and Crown Heights blending without interruption into Nichols Hills (on steroids) blending into Quail Creek and Val Verde, blending into the choicest parts of Edmond and west Norman. Maybe 100,000 people. If you're truly bored, and God help you if you are, Google Earth the city of Clayton and then follow Ladue Road west about 10-15 miles past 141, then scroll south to Clayton Road and follow it all the way east back into Clayton. The posh malls, the country clubs, both Whole Foods, every high-end retailer can be found in this one area or immediately adjoining a mile or two on either side. For most pf this area, they kept the roads two-laned and clustered development in only a few places. Thus making the prices so high that only upscale can exist. OKC has that level of wealth, but the pockmarked nature of development hides it. It is what it is.

I have always questioned, why Okc well kept neighborhoods do not flow together without interruption?

[Pete]

To be clear, we are talking about upscale RETAIL development, right? Because there has been a bunch of upscale office and hotel development over the last several years.

The reason we haven't seen much higher-end retail is simple: the economy. First, it was Oklahoma's awful local economy that hit in the mid 80's and lasted until the late 90's. Then, the national economy went in the tank which meant all the high-end retailers went into scale-back mode. There hasn't been much up-scale retail development in California, either. Lots of "power centers" with big box discounters and not much.


Classen Curve was commenced before things really went south nationally and the only reason they are an exception is they have basically paid business like Whole Foods and Anthropologie big incentives. The same for the rest of their tenants, most of which were merely moved from other parts of the city.

This is all getting ready to change, as the national economy is on the mend and OKC has one of the strongest local economies. The Chamber is working hard and CHK is going to have lots of space to lease in the newly revamped NH Plaza.

[onthestrip]

Upscale is definitely used way too often. Seems like every new shopping/strip center the developers are trying to call it upscale. IMO there is no true upscale center in okc. When I think of upscale I think of luxury brands like prada, Gucci or dept stores like Barney's and Neimans. But if you were to pick I say Penn Square, the spring creeks in Edmond maybe. Classen Curve I have to think about, at least at this point in its life. I know the structure says upscale but are the tenants? Is BD Home, Black Optical and Red Coyote considered upscale? Maybe they are and I'm just thinking they aren't because they are local shops. Maybe I should forget about that and just focus on their products and pricing on determining whether it's upscale.

[semisimple]

Now, STL, proportioned for population, probably does not have more wealth than OKC, allowing for size.

Almost all major metro areas have more wealth per capita than OKC. In greater St. Louis 20% of households have an income of over $100k; in OKC, 15.5% do. Median household income in STL is $8k higher than OKC. This is not simply an artifact of the COL difference, which is minimal between the two.

It's not just income per capita and the concentration of wealth that matters, but also the sheer numbers of high-income households. Since STL is well over 2x larger than OKC, there are far more high-income earners to support a given upscale establishment.

even though OKC is bigger than St. Louis, St. Louis feels like it's about 2 or 3 times larger just by how concentrated certain areas are

St. Louis feels bigger because it is bigger--by a lot. STL has 2.81 million people and OKC has 1.25 million. The city proper populations I assume you are quoting are irrelevant because they are just arbitrary boundaries. If STL proper encompassed all the land OKC proper does, it would be much larger in population than OKC.

A more extreme example would be Atlanta. OKC has a larger city population, but Atlanta looks and feels so much larger because it has over 4x the metro area population.

[MDot]

St. Louis feels bigger because it is bigger--by a lot. STL has 2.81 million people and OKC has 1.25 million. The city proper populations I assume you are quoting are irrelevant because they are just arbitrary boundaries. If STL proper encompassed all the land OKC proper does, it would be much larger in population than OKC.

A more extreme example would be Atlanta. OKC has a larger city population, but Atlanta looks and feels so much larger because it has over 4x the metro area population.

OMG I'm a phony because I quoted a city proper which apparently has arbitrary boundary. Tehe.. Yes I was quoting city proper, if you didn't notice that in my post I was referring to the inner city not the entire metro.

ATL would have been a better example for me to use but since we were on the subject of STL I just used them instead. =)

[Questor]

Stlokc, actually I appreciate your comparisons to St. Louis. I think too often we compare our city to Dallas, and I'm not sure that is a city I'd like to see us emulate.

Metro, I am not sure that development name rings a bell. Years ago when I lived up there a retail center went up I think on the east side.. It was made of brick, had some really nice wall/signage up front, really nice landscaping, and housed various local businesses. It looked nice and if I remember correctly its tenants were targeting higher quality/cost. If that's the place then yeah I'd say sure it is.

Pete yes exactly, I meant retail. You have some interesting points... You know sometimes I think OKC has just had the worst economic luck at times!

Onthestrip I fall into that trap too, of not thinking about local businesses as upscale, but I think they definitely can be. I agree with you on the businesses you listed and wish more of those types of places would open up here. It's often frustrating to see such shops in Texas but I have to remind myself that their population size down there is just so much more than ours.

[adaniel]

I'm very familiar with the area that stlokc is talking about in St. Louis. You can go from the Central West End in St Louis proper, then Clayton, Laude, Creve Coeur, across 270 to Chesterfield and the West County Suburbs. We actually had family friends who owned a place in Huntleigh.

There is simply nothing like this in OKC. Even the affluent parts of Edmond are only half-developed with fields and scrub oak groves in between otherwise wealthy pockets. To see this in stark terms, visit the NY Times "Mapping America" database. Select "View More Maps" then click "Income" then "Median Household income" Then type in cities across America. Notice how nearly all of them will have consistent dark green swaths, indicating a cluster of high income. The look at OKC. Simply doesn't exist. There's a lot of wealth islands but no consistent area where you can point to and say "Look at all that wealth."

I guarantee you this is what businesses do. And for that reason, I don't really share the optimism that a wave of upscale development is right around the corner. I think the Chamber will simply have to get creative in getting businesses here, otherwise we will continue to see upscale retailers camp out in Tulsa.

BTW, St Louis is an extremely underrated town. I don't know why so many people in OKC robotically go to Houston or Austin when a very cool city is the same distance up the road, but I digress.