Midtown

[metro]

Automobile Alley _|_Boathouse Row _|_ Bricktown _|_Central Business District
Deep Deuce_|_Film Row_|_Midtown _|_Plaza District_|_SoSA_|_Uptown / 23rd



307 NW 13th | 816 N. Walker | 123 Garage | Ambassador Hotel | Bleu Garten | Broadway 10 | Buick Building | Catholic Charities | Edge @ Midtown | Fassler Hall / Dust Bowl | Fedora | Francis Apartments | Garage Burgers | GE Global Research | Guardian | Jerky.com | LIFT | Lisbon Lofts | Marion | Mayfair Apartments | Metropolitan | OCU Law School | Oklahoma Contemporary | Packard Building | Packard's | Pontiac Building | Pop-up Shops | R&J Lounge and Supper Club | Saint Anthony Expansion | Sidecar | Sunbeam | Viceroy Grille | Walker Building

6/10/14 Update

The Midtown District continues it's frantic pace with close to 30 active projects on NW 10th or within a few blocks. The projects shown in the graphic above total more than $250 million in construction.

The Edge @ Midtown is due to welcome it's first residents this summer, and will feature 252 apartments plus retail space. The Midtown Renaissance group will soon open the Mayfair Apartments, adding 18 beautifully renovated units to it's long list of other historical residential properties, including the Guardian, Hadden Hall, and several others. MidtownR is also working on the fragile Marion, which will add another 10 units.

The Edge @ Midtown

In terms of apartments, the two largest complexes in all of urban OKC are both just starting construction at opposite ends of the district: LIFT with 327 units and the Metropolitan with 330; both should be complete by late 2015. Lisbon Lofts is the only for-sale multi-family project in the area but it's brisk advance sales means we can expect to see more. (For comprehensive information about urban living, see our Downtown Housing Summary.)

LIFT	Metropolitan

There are will soon be a substantial increase in employment, with Sunbeam Family Services and the GE Global Research Center both under construction. Saint Anthony will start a major expansion in the next couple of months and Catholic Charities will soon break ground on their new headquarters. In addition, the Buick Building and Pontiac Building will soon be open and feature large amounts of office space on their upper floors. And 307 NW 13th will host a large energy company, complete with shipping container offices.

Catholic Charities Headquarters	GE Global Research Center

On the hospitality front, the gorgeous Ambassador Hotel is now open for business, featuring the Viceroy Grille and the top-floor O Bar. It's hard to miss the massive Fassler Hall / Dust Bowl structure and the beer garden and bowling lounge is pushing hard towards a fall opening. Garage Burgers opened it's very popular concept in a unique setting at the Guardian.

Fassler Hall / Dust Bowl

Another ambitious restaurant project is Broadway 10 Chophouse, in the Buick Building. Across the street in the Pontiac Building, the same group will be operating a quaint bar with large a outdoor patio called Sidecar. The owners of well-loved and respected Ludivine are under construction for R&J Lounge & Supper Club. And finally, Midtown will soon be home to OKC's first food truck court, when the slick Bleu Garten opens this fall.

Broadway 10 Chophouse	Bleu Garten Food Truck Court

Lots of activity on the retail front as well. The Pop-up Shops will bring their portable geodesic domes to the lot just west of Bleu Garten on a semi-regular basis. Sara Kate Studios Shoppe will bring home furnishings and design services to the Pontiac Building. And Nault Gallery will be relocating to the newly-renovated 816 N. Walker and will share that building with Studio Architecture.

A couple other of major happenings... OCU Law School continues to renovate the old Central High building and hopes to be completed in early 2015. And the area's first parking structure, 123 Garage, will be complete in a few months just west of the 10th & Broadway intersection.

[brianinok]

Bob Howard

[Karried]

The old Guardian funeral home garage will be converted into 22 condominiums that will sell between $170,000 and $370,000. Next door, plans are being drawn up to convert the former Guardian Funeral Home into an event center, but Banta is prepared to change it into offices if a company makes a bid to occupy the entire property.

Yuk, they should rethink this one.

Other than that, sounds pretty impressive ... guess we'll see.

[okclee]

I love the Midtown concept. Even if Banta doesn't consider Midtown a rival to Bricktown, I think that Bricktown does need the competion. With a alternative to Bricktown I think that would only make Bricktown and Midtown that much better.

[metro]

Yuk, they should rethink this one.

Other than that, sounds pretty impressive ... guess we'll see.

Well yes and no in my opinion. I knew he had planned to do this at the Guardian site for sometime now. There is a need for a smaller events center in downtown/Midtown. It will definitely fill a niche since there are no other places like it downtown/Midtown. Yes there are events centers (Montgomery, Petroleum Club) for banquets and receptions, but Banta plans on using if for weddings (up to 300 people or so, receptions, private events, etc. It will have different sections to accomodate different sizes of parties, etc. I support the need for it, HOWEVER the proposed design (see the rendering in today's paper) is absolutely wrong! It looks like a giant suburban Nichols Hills home. Very suburban in design. The existing building is very unique and they should retain that. Other than that good job Banta! Can't wait until he gets some street level retail going! I wish with his properties at 10th and Broadway he would allow more retail in those and not hold them for a Corporate Office. Automobile Alley has too many corporate offices and businesses and is running out of room to make it a night-time destination. Leave the streetfront for retail and restaurants. I'd love to see an Urban Outfitters in the building on the NW corner of 10th and Broadway, perfect perfect building for them!!

[trison]

The old Guardian Garage has amazing windows.

[jbrown84]

Banta is really on the ball. His development is so organic and not fabricated like KC's Power & Light district or Tulsa's East End. Not that those kinds of projects don't work, but it's great to see someone succeeding almost entirely on adaptive reuse.

I was in NYC last week and one thing I noticed is that they have many, many very small restaurants. Even many Zagat-rated establishments are just little hole in the wall places no bigger than The Coach House or The Metro. Midtown would be a great place for those size restaurants. Perhaps more restaurants would make it in the inner city if they weren't designing them all to hold 300 people.

[okclee]

Has anyone seen a master plan for the Banta area? I didn't see anything on their website.

[CCOKC]

My husband and I are interested in officing in the area and called them in January to get some information. They didn't call us back for a couple of weeks. When we finally did get a return call I asked for some information and still haven't received it. Their website is not much help. I don't know if they are just so busy or what.

[jbrown84]

I saw a model in his office but it doesn't really tell you anything other than where all the buildings are.

[okclee]

Maybe one of the Okc-Talk, investigative reporters could look into this, and see what the "Banta Plan" is.

[BG918]

Maybe eventually, with his relationship with Bob Howard, he can convince him to urbanize his dealerships along Broadway. It would be ideal to have the enclosed auto galleries facing Broadway with huge windows and good nighttime lighting, and then the actual lots behind. This wouldn't be that difficult, and those luxury dealerships are always renovating and expanding anyways. It would really give it a more classy feel coming down Broadway from NW 23rd into downtown. It would be awesome to make that stretch of Broadway north of NW 10th into a true 'Auto Alley' with urban-scale luxury dealerships on both sides.

I'm really curious which "national retailer" is interested in Midtown, and where the store will be? My guess is somewhere along NW 10th, that seems to be the 'Main Street' of Midtown and where most of the future retail/restaurants will go. That's good because it's a major connector between the Asian District/St. Anthony's and the OU Med. Center. It's also a good transition between Heritage Hills and Mesta Park neighborhoods to the north and the CBD to the south. Maybe a future light rail corridor as well???

[HOT ROD]

oh, I proposed that same corridor to the city's MAPS III "survey". I proposed having a line S on Robinson, N on Harvey or Broadway turn at 10th E-W, also at Reno E-W. On 10th at Shartel or Classen, it could go on to the Asia District and OCU (future extension or current if funding there) and on 10th and Harrison?? it could go toward the OHC and OU Med, then on up to the capitol. The Reno portion would go East on Reno into Bricktown where it could have an intersection at Mickey Mantle (and go up over the bridge into Deep Duece and connect to the Harrison ext. Back to the intersection, it could keep East then have a turnaround in far E Bricktown (with the possiblity of future extension. For the W. Reno route, it would go W to Stage Center and the bus terminal/Montgomery where it could either have a round the block track or turn N toward the Civic Center/City Hall then roll E down Park Avenue or Kerr into the CBD.

That would be a pretty extensive system that would get used, and have the potential for LOTS of routes. That is the key to a successful light rail trolley circular - you want it extensive enough to have creative routes so that you can have the flexibility downtown just like you do a bus. You dont want a line to just go one way in a circle - if its prohibitively expensive, thats better than nothing - but I dont think it will be that expensive to have a rail trolley in downtown OKC. In fact, I think my suggestion above should cost less than $50M, and that would cover pretty much all of our downtown aside from downtown South and West.

I think it sould be done, and fast. With the influx of people downtown and midtown as well as the impending retail boom - there needs to be an efficient transit system downtown NOW so that people can get around without cars/hopefully wont even have one. that is the beginning of a true downtown economy and that is what we should shoot for.

Just think, you leave your townhouse or highrise condo hop on the trolley and head for your job in the CBD then after work you hop the trolley to the store then head home for dinner. After dinner you hop a trolley to the Ford Center to see the Sonics, then hop the trolley to Auto Alley or Midtown for some cocktails or to dance it up. Then hop the trolley home. Should happen soon!!!

[jbrown84]

Maybe eventually, with his relationship with Bob Howard, he can convince him to urbanize his dealerships along Broadway. It would be ideal to have the enclosed auto galleries facing Broadway with huge windows and good nighttime lighting, and then the actual lots behind. This wouldn't be that difficult, and those luxury dealerships are always renovating and expanding anyways. It would really give it a more classy feel coming down Broadway from NW 23rd into downtown. It would be awesome to make that stretch of Broadway north of NW 10th into a true 'Auto Alley' with urban-scale luxury dealerships on both sides.

I've seen some dealerships in urban areas of Houston that had multi-story garages instead of seas of surface lots. It looked really cool.

[metro]

Has anyone seen a master plan for the Banta area? I didn't see anything on their website.

okclee, you might want to re-read my original post at the top. it outlines Banta's plans. In speculation, you can't have everything nailed down but you can have a master plan, that is his master plan if you will. As you will re-read in the article, some buildings depends on who decides to be a tenant first. You can't force tenants to move to MidTown so you have to accept what you get to an extent.

[okclee]

Metro, thanks for the original post. I was just looking for more of a aerial map of Banta properties. There isn't one on their website. I really think that Banta has a excellent vision for the area, Okc could use more developers like him.

[metro]

No doubt. There has been a aerial map posted before. I'll see if I can find it if someone doesn't beat me to it.

[metro]

Drove by the main Midtown area along Walker and the Plaza Court area last night and up 10th street as well. Okay, the Plaza Court building progress is still coming along slowly, I imagine Irma's Burger shop will open up first then the Prarie Sky Bakery then finally the Irish pub will open last, it barely has any progress going. Then on 11th and Walker the 1492 New World Latin Cuisine is coming along nicely and should be open in a few weeks I imagine. The building on the corner directly south of 1492 is also coming along nicely but I'm not sure what is going in there. Banta's buildings immediately north of 1492 are being remodeled, gutted, and new windows are going in as well as the buildings directly across the street. Work continues on all his buildings on 10th street, slowly but surely. The OKC Community Foundation on 10th and Broadway is nearing completion on the exterior and has really changed the look of the intersection. I just wish they had the forsight to build it another story or two and sell the ground floor for retail and another floor for offices/lofts. Further south on Broadway, Red Prime steakhouse is coming along quickly and should be open on schedule next month.

[trison]

The buildings on Walker north of the 1492 Latin Cuisine will house a Wine Bar, Dry Cleaners and Bridal Shop.

[bandnerd]

I saw that 1492 place this morning. I drive by there twice a week and this morning was the first time I noticed the sign.

Then again, I think today was the first day it wasn't raining when I drove by? haha.

Good stuff, thanks for the updates! Can't wait for all that stuff in Plaza Court to open!

[Pete]

What the heck is going on with McNellie's??

They were planning to open by St. Patricks Day and we are now 2 months past that and they still aren't close.

The entire Plaza Court has been the slowest moving development I can ever remember.

[trison]

Part of the holdup is that Banta has been working with OG&E to remove the overhead lines to eliminate all of the un-sitely wires and poles. He also had to have several transformers installed and he also had to increase the size of the gas lines coming to the buildings to accomodate the restaurants. You may not have noticed but OG&E removed the overhead lines going north from Plaza Court to 12th Street last week. I wish they would remove all overhead lines in Midtown. It would make everything look so much cleaner. Additionally, the street work on Walker north to 13th is just beginning and is not scheduled to be completed for a couple of months. They are widening Walker, replacing sidewalks, adding streetscape and lighting. Banta was wanting all of the utility and street improvements to be done before he had a bunch of restaurants open and the restaurant customers got irritiated because they couldn't get in or out of the parking lots. I think Banta's goal is to have a quality development and if that takes more time so be it.

[BDP]

Wow, that's pretty ambitious of him. I think it's a nice thing to do for the long term, though.

[Pete]

Thanks for the details, trison.

Plaza Court is the real jewel of Midtown and I'm glad to hear they are trying to do things right.

[metro]

Thanks for filling in the gaps I could not trison. My question though is what is the building SOUTH, not north of 1492 going to be?