Oklahoma City group seeks proposals for housing in Deep Deuce and atop new garage

The Oklahoma City Urban Renewal Authority is issuing two requests for development proposals that challenge conventional approaches to promoting new downtown housing.

 
By Steve Lackmeyer | Published: November 22, 2012    Comment on this article Leave a comment

photo - The proposed new garage along Main Street is shown in this rendering at nine stories high. Revised plans call for 10 stories of parking with an additional three stories of housing. Drawing provided by TAP Architecture
The proposed new garage along Main Street is shown in this rendering at nine stories high. Revised plans call for 10 stories of parking with an additional three stories of housing. Drawing provided by TAP Architecture

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We don't have the large downtown parcels we once had. We have to get more creative in finding available opportunities.”

Cathy O'Connor,
Urban Renewal director

While acknowledging the solicitation requires a quick turnaround on the housing development, O'Connor said multiple established developers have indicated they are prepared to submit bids.

“Building atop the garage will be an opportunity for a developer to go 10 stories up without the cost of getting there,” O'Connor said.

The site of the garage, currently a surface parking lot, is one of the last big blocks of Urban Renewal-owned land left downtown. It's a reversal from a decade ago when large undeveloped “super blocks” remained left over from the major Urban Renewal clearance program of the 1970s.

Those large undeveloped blocks were later redeveloped into the Legacy at Arts Quarter Apartments, Devon Energy Center, and soon, the new John W. Rex Elementary School.

“We don't have the large downtown parcels we once had,” O'Connor said. “We have to get more creative in finding available opportunities.”

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