OPENINGS AND CLOSINGS
Local comings and goings discussed in weekly downtown chat
The Oklahoman’s Steve Lackmeyer fielded questions from readers in Friday’s OKC Central Live Chat. You can join the conversation on Fridays at 9:30 a.m. and submit your questions about the happenings in and around downtown Oklahoma City. Below is an edited transcript of Friday’s chat.
Q: The plans for the lower half of Scissortail Park, to demolish most of what we know as Hubcap Alley, came through this week, save for the Cusack Meats parking lot. Could the city just not come to an agreement with the owners on that specific piece of property?
A: The cost to do so was deemed to be prohibitively expensive. Keep in mind the lot the city wanted to acquire was not the operation itself, which is west of the park, but a lot Cusack owns and uses for trucks to back into the loading docks. The block is two-thirds empty green space, so it’s not the end of the world other than the city will need to construct a creative, attractive barrier to keep kids away from the trucks.
Q: Besides the expansion of the park, can we expect any other areas to grow out of the area where Hubcap Alley was located?
A: I really hope the right people acquire the remaining junk yards east of the park along Hubcap Alley, clear the blight and yet preserve and redevelop some of the more notable structures like A&A Auto Parts and Salvage. The city could help the area’s prospects by narrowing Robinson Avenue in the area to two lanes with curbside parking on both sides.
Q: Whatever happened to the planned stoplight at 8th street on Auto Alley?
A: It will be added once the streetcar system is complete, which will be late 2018.
Q: Has the AC hotel opened yet?
A: The target opening date for the AC is Dec. 13 and the Hyatt Place is set to open by February.
Q: Is there a delay going on with the food market directly south of Bleu Garten?
A: Developer Kayla Baker reports interior design was complete and then scrapped after plans were released for a different project that looked fairly similar. New plans are complete and
work should begin in late December.
Q: I love going to Midtown and going through the pop-up shops. Allison Bailey and her team have done just a great job on that. Can you give us any examples of stores that started as pop-ups and then moved on to have brickand-mortar locations?
A: Sara Kate Studios on Automobile Alley started as a pop-up. Angela Hodgkinson, who owns Solare, was a Better Block OKC pop-up, and then set up a store in the Plaza District. Commonplace Books started as a pop up. Sigmere Via was a Plaza building pop-up and just opened in the old Shop Good space on NW 9. Even Pie Junkie started out humble, working out of St. Luke’s.
Q: People often refer to the urban core and I have even had someone tell me my home is located in it. What would you consider the boundaries of the urban core?
A: The greater “urban core” as a I define it; NW 36 to SW 29, Pennsylvania to Eastern.