Lighting up the Underground: Oklahoma City Conncourse gets new name, hopes for new tenants
by Kelley Chambers
The Journal Record
3/30/2007




OKLAHOMA CITY – The renamed Conncourse winding below downtown Oklahoma City officially opens today after a nearly $2 million face-lift.

Alison Oshel, formerly with Downtown OKC Inc. and now director of community redevelopment at the Greater Oklahoma City Chamber, said the retail space will add to the momentum of downtown and revitalization of shops and restaurants in the area.

“That was always the intent with the Underground renovation and that was how we got the property owners buy-in was to say ‘your basement space is worth something,’” she said. “This effort will help to get the foot traffic down there which then follows the leasing capability.”

Individual retail space is the property of the entity it sits beneath.

And while some of the spaces have stayed occupied for years, others have sat vacant awaiting new interest and new uses.

One of the larger retail areas underground is part of the First National Center.

Including all of the below-grade retail space available at First National, the total comes to about 19,000 square feet, said Zach Martin with Sperry Van Ness, who handles leasing for First National. Of that space, however, Martin said about 13,000 square feet is currently vacant.

One of First National’s longest underground tenants is Vicki’s Style Shop, which has been in its space beneath the city for more than 30 years.

Martin said as other improvements are made to the building as a whole, he sees the demand for the below-grade space at the building increasing.

“Everyone agrees there’s not enough retail downtown and there is a demand for it,” he said. “I think retail in the Underground will thrive, it’s something unique about Oklahoma City and how we’ve gone in and utilized it is phenomenal. It was a wise investment for the future and I think the return on investment will be exponential.”

Another property owner who has a large stretch of retail space is Rick Dowell beneath his Dowell Center building.

Dowell said he has about 7,000 square feet of potential retail space that has not been in use for more than a decade.

The last tenants in the Dowell space were two restaurants that closed when the building closed in 1994. Dowell bought the building in 1996.

And while he has not determined if he will make the space available for retail use, Dowell said he does see more retail popping up to coincide with the renovations and increased foot traffic.

“If you walk down the Conncourse you’ll see a lot of potential retail spaces that are unused at the moment,” he said. “Once you increase the traffic down there one thing feeds off another.”

And while the vision was to get more people below the streets and resuscitate business, not everyone thinks the newly minted Underground is the best place for downtown Oklahoma City to do business.

Downtown OKC Inc. headed up the nearly $2 million project to breathe new life into the tunnels and hired architect Rand Elliott to make the project look fresh and exciting.

Mark Inman, with CB Richard Ellis Oklahoma, said although the Underground is a great place to walk through to get out of the elements, he does not like the idea of it potentially drawing retail off the street.

“I would like to see all the retail opportunities on the street level,” he said. “Any time you have retail space available off the street or below grade it competes with the traditional retail space and affects occupancy at the street level.”

Inman said the space in the Underground could even compete for business outside of the downtown core.

“I would hate to see street-level retail or Bricktown not get a deal because of the Underground,” he said.