Construction set to start next week on $70M West Village
Construction is set to start next week on West Village, a $70 million mix of housing, retail and office space that will surround the 21c Museum Hotel along Film Row.
The development, which includes The Jones Assembly restaurant and music venue set to open next month, is being led by the Hall family at the 100-year-old Ford Model T assembly plant at 900 W Main. Patriarch Fred Jones started his automotive career at age 24 when the plant opened and eventually bought it from Ford Motor Co. in 1967.
Fred Jones Manufacturing moved out of the plant in 2013 and the building reopened earlier this year as the home of the 134-room 21c Museum Hotel and ADG, an architectural, engineering and planning firm. Fred Hall, CEO of Hall Capital and grandson of Fred Jones, said Tuesday he expects the development will spark even more growth on the west side of downtown.
“The response to 21c has exceeded our wildest expectations, and anticipation is building for the opening next year for The Jones Assembly,” Hall said. “The last piece of our master plan is this exciting mixed-use project, West Village. The addition of this gamechanging project will complete the revitalization of this emerging area and anchor the west end of downtown Oklahoma City.”
The project is designed by Dallas-based Arrive and will be built by local contractor CMS Willowbrook. The development will include 345 residences, 9,000 square
feet of commercial space and 805 structured parking spaces. Another 66 curbside parking spaces will be added throughout the development.
The development will be built to the east, south and north of the former assembly plant.
Development of the sprawling former auto assembly property followed years of spurned attempts by various parties to buy the plant from the Hall family. Speaking to Oklahoma City Rotary Club 29 on Tuesday, Hall said he promised his grandfather not to sell what the automotive pioneer called the family’s “Camelot.”
“We knew the building could do greater things,” Hall said. “We were looking for the fuel to polish it. It was a property my grandfather said to me to never sell.”
Hall Capital teamed up with downtown developers Mark Beffort, Andy Burnett and Zach Martin on the project. Hall said the entire development, including the hotel and The Jones Assembly, totals $200 million.
The Jones Assembly, located at 901 W Main, just south of the 21c Museum Hotel, is set to open next month and will be booked “nightly” with Nashville musicians and former Oklahoma artists wanting to make a return visit to their home state, Hall said.
The venue is being opened by Grammy winner Graham Colton and restaurateur Brian Bogert. It includes a full restaurant and an outdoor bar and performance stage inside two warehouses that were once owned by John A. Brown’s Department Stores.
Hall said his family has investments in Nashville and extensive ties to Nashville artists. He said the opening act at The Jones Assembly will either be Willie Nelson, Michael McDonald or The Kings of Leon.
“I believe in a statement in development that is called ‘live, work and play,’” Hall said. “Once we get the apartments done, we will have 350 people living there, we will have the hotel, and we will have restaurants … I will be living, working, playing there myself.”
Martin, whose other projects include the redevelopment of the Mideke Building in Bricktown, said he believes the West Village project will spur even more investment in the once-neglected west side of downtown.
“Just two years ago when we started, the west side of downtown looked pretty dicey,” Martin said. “Yet in just the past two years, we have the Main Street Arcade open (being leased for offices, restaurants and retail), the Sunshine Cleaners building is opening (home to a brewery and retail), the 21c is open, the Jones Assembly is about to open and the new boulevard is just a couple of years away. It’s just amazing what is happening — the west side of downtown is becoming cool.”