Full-service hotel project in the heart of Bricktown moves forward
The Oklahoman’s Steve Lackmeyer fielded questions from readers during his OKC Central chat on Friday. This is an abridged transcript of that conversation. To read the full transcript or to participate in next week’s chat, go to NewsOK.com.
Q: When is construction expected to begin on the Bricktown Renaissance Hotel?
A: Developer Andy Patel reports work is about to start. The building permit for the Renaissance Hotel is in the final stages of review at public works. Once the permit is approved, construction should start within three to four weeks.
The Renaissance, which will be built at the southeast corner of Oklahoma and Sheridan avenues, is set to be the first full-service hotel in Bricktown. The hotel will be 10 stories tall with 182 rooms. Construction will take about 18 months.
As an aside, construction is also set to start next month on Patel’s Fairfield Inn along E.K. Gaylord and just south of the future convention center. The Fairfield Inn will be five stories tall and 133 rooms. The construction schedule for the Fairfield Inn is 12 months.
Q: I heard the proposed garage adjacent to the civic center, had interested tenants, and was the first piece in a surface lot development shuffle game. What are you hearing? Is that thing dead because of Box’s fight to keep the surface lot?
A: Some of the most respected urban planners, developers and advocates in Oklahoma City were equally concerned about the idea of building a garage across from Bicentennial Park. I am also unsure how the Oklahoma City Police Association is calculating demand for a garage at this spot when the surface lot is not filling up on weekdays. I went to the musical “Beautiful” on Tuesday night at the Civic Center Music Hall. It appeared to me that this was a sellout. Yet parking was not that difficult to find. Also remember the nearby Arts District Garage is only running at 53 percent occupancy.
As I wrote in last week’s column, a garage is needed in the city police and courts complex. And a site will be available for a garage with demolition of the now vacated old police and court buildings. But at City Hall, if they don’t want to do something, they can kill the discussion altogether without this kind of policy decision ever being brought to the attention of the mayor and city council.
The Police Association and City Hall need to work with the Planning Department and the Alliance for Economic Development for Oklahoma City to come up with a way to make the police/courts complex site work in a way that also will allow for development of the association’s surface lots along Main Street.
A tenant interested in the first floor of a garage will still be interested in the first floor of a residential or commercial development on the same site.
The Police Association can appeal the design committee’s decision to the board of adjustment. And if they win, count on the opponents taking it to district court. And if the association loses, count on it going to the appeals court ...
It seems as if a lot of money and time could be saved if the association’s first choice was revived and the mayor and council were given a chance to look at the overall development ramifications of these decisions.
Q: I still think the city should be convincing Von Maur to go downtown. They aren’t a department store like a Macy’s or Dillard’s; they are more like a Nordstrom and Nordstrom does well in lots of urban areas. Thoughts?
A: The age of building new department stores is over. We need to do everything we can to support our existing department stores and retailers who are getting battered by Amazon.
That said, I do believe we are closer to seeing some national retailers coming into the urban core, but I see no possibility of that mix including a department store.
Q: Any idea when construction will begin on the building just west of Chiltepes in the Plaza?
A: Jeff Struble was ready to start construction on the two-story building for 1804 NW 16 months ago when he was approached by a restaurant group to customize a build-out for them. The revised deeper building plan was approved Wednesday by the Urban Design Committee and construction is set to start soon.
We do have a change of plans at NW 15 and Blackwelder, where Struble was planning to build a parking lot and three-story residential building. The building is on hold now, and Struble is proceeding with building a larger, 110-space parking lot on the site after deciding the demand for parking was greater than for housing in the area.