OnCue to deal with politics of revived urban core
After years of building everywhere in the metro except downtown, OnCue is in the midst of hunting for multiple locations but first must navigate through the unique neighborhood politics that have emerged with a revived urban core. It’s easy to understand why OnCue might want the southwest corner of NW 13 and Western, which also opens onto Classen Boulevard and is at a main entry into Midtown and surrounding historic neighborhoods. Classen just north of NW 13 has an average daily traffic count that tops 28,000. Just a couple of years ago, Shyon Keoppel was planning on building a mix of retail and apartments on the corner. But when OnCue came calling, Keoppel scrapped that project and put the property under contract. We don’t know the sales price for the corner, but records show OnCue paid $331,000 for a 1909 two-story home just west of Keoppel’s block, more than doubling the price paid for the recently remodeled house just one year earlier. So yeah, OnCue pays well for real estate. But the likely destruction of this home and one other statehood era house owned by Keoppel is just part of the concern to be voiced by some neighbors who have long fought to preserve historic structures in the area. Other neighbors have indicated they are concerned about the site itself, that being at the entrance to a historic neighborhood and is inappropriate for such a high-traffic operation. The retailer’s representatives are set to meet with nearby residents at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at Classen School for Advanced Studies, 1901 N Ellison Ave. Plans filed with the city show the retailer has tweaked its design somewhat, foregoing any use of a pole or monument sign, adding landscaping and a retaining wall between the station and the neighborhood. The property itself spans 1.7 acres and the station at 8,451 square feet is bigger than the one closest to downtown at NW 23 and Santa Fe Avenue at the gateway to Uptown.
The station will be the latest model, meaning it comes with a drivethru and a grill. And while OnCue is known
for its well-maintained, landscaped and secured stations, the question is whether OnCue can do anything to end the debate over the location itself, which ultimately will be decided with a zoning request to the city’s planning commission.
This won’t be OnCue’s only interest in the urban core. Over the past year I’ve tracked the company looking at sites along the Oklahoma City Boulevard and near Interstate 235 between Automobile Alley and the Oklahoma
Health Center.
Twenty years ago, heck, even a decade ago, these zoning requests would have been a slam dunk. The debate over NW 13 and Western may very well determine just how difficult it is from this point moving on.