TIME FOR RENEWAL
Apartment tower scrapped, new proposals sought
The Oklahoma City Urban Renewal Authority is scrapping plans for a 17-story apartment tower at NW 4 and E.K. Gaylord and is set to solicit new development proposals for the last remaining undeveloped property in the Central Business District. The triangular shaped, three-acre property at the southeast corner of NW 4 and E.K. Gaylord has been subject to split ownership for more than three decades, with the western third owned by the Oklahoma City Urban Renewal Authority and the east two-thirds owned by a series of private owners. The current owners of the western portion of the block, Mark Ruffin and Jonathan Russell, proposed building the apartment tower, 36,500 square feet of retail and a seven-story garage when they responded to a previous solicitation by Urban Renewal in 2016. Their timetable called for construction to start by last spring with completion in the fall of 2019. Cathy O’Connor, director of the Urban Renewal Authority, told her board on Wednesday that Russell and Ruffin never completed a redevelopment agreement with the authority. Russell informed The Oklahoman during prior interviews they had put their project on hold because of concerns about market conditions. On Wednesday, he said he and Ruffin were set to revisit the tower project and re-examine its feasibility. He confirmed Texas-based Bomasada, which built the nearby Metropolitan Apartments, has expressed interest in the block, but no deal has been done. “The plan that is furthest along is the one we had originally,” Russell said. “Anything else is just talk.” Russell said he understands the Urban Renewal Authority needed to issue a new request for proposals because deadlines were expiring. “If we’re going to make a deal with Urban Renewal, they have to issue a new request for proposals,” Russell said. “Whoever owns my piece of land is really the only natural responder to that request. There is really nothing else you can do with it other than tie it up.”