Downtown OKC's/Urban Neighbors Home Tour returns for the 2nd year on MAY 2nd, 2009. If you would like to volunteer, tour guides and a variety of helpers will be needed. This is great exposure for Urban Neighbors and great way to showcase downtown OKC! Email:
snewlon at urbanneighbors.org if you'd like to volunteer.

Coming up soon, we're still seeking volunteers if anyone is interested in helping.

Also, noticed this new video by Steve Lackmeyer that is on a similiar note (downtown living).

http://www.newsok.com/multimedia/video/17350762001

Dangit, not again. The chalk lines from last year still aren't gone yet.

Chalk lines? And don't worry, you're complex isn't on the tour this year.

What IS on the tour this year?

http://www.downtownokc.com/Portals/0/images/MoveUP%20Tour%20logo%20final%20small.jpg

Now is the Time to Move Up to Downtown Oklahoma City!
Second Annual Move UP Downtown Living Tour May 2

Downtown OKC – Now is the time to move up to Downtown Oklahoma City! On Saturday, May 2, the second annual Move UP Downtown Living Tour will offer the chance to tour apartments, lofts and condos and new and future construction. This year’s tour will include a special seminar, “Downtown Living, How Can You Afford Not To?”, that will feature information regarding financing options and experts discussing new tax credits for homebuyers and the reasonable cost of the urban lifestyle.

Experience all that downtown OKC has to offer, with restaurants and specialty shops offering tour specials and prizes. The May 2 tour runs from 11 am – 5 pm and is free. Ride the free Move UP shuttle around downtown and between stops. The tour will be self-guided and stops can be visited in any order. Tour books and maps will be available at each stop. Free parking will be provided. The tour will also include “Jane’s Walk” a special walking tour of Deep Deuce in honor of urban pioneer Jane Jacobs.

Stops featured on the tour include Block 42; The Hill; The Sieber; Legacy at Arts Quarter; Carnegie Centre; Park Harvey; The Montgomery; Central Avenue Villas; the Brownstones at Maywood Park ,The Lofts at Maywood Park and a special stop at Downtown’s new boutique grocer The Sage Cafe and Market.

Since the passage of MAPS in 1993, the city center has experienced over $3 billion in public and private investment. Development of new and renovated residences are Going Up like never before in Downtown Oklahoma City. There are currently over 2200 rental and for-sale units existing, under construction or planned. A 2005 study shows that by 2015, the total combined growth of housing in Downtown could climb to between 4,000 and 7,750 units.

For specific tour details, please visit Downtown OKC > Home (http://www.DowntownOKC.com) or call 235-3500. The Move UP Downtown Living Tour is produced by Downtown OKC Inc. and sponsored by the Downtown Business Improvement District, The Oklahoman, Downtown Magazine, Cox Communications and the Downtown Developers. Supporting sponsors include the Downtown Urban Neighbors (U.N.).

Thanks Kim!

Thanks! Now to remember to actually go this year, lol. I really meant to last year, and remembered the next weekend. A bit too late then.

Showing off what downtown OKC has to offer with May homes tour
by Kelley Chambers
The Journal Record April 20, 2009

OKLAHOMA CITY – Judy Hatfield is ready to show off the Carnegie Centre, even if there isn’t much to see just yet.

The proposed project of condo, office and retail space at 132 Dean A. McGee Ave. is an empty shell, but Hatfield will invite visitors inside for the Move UP Downtown Living Tour on May 2.The tour, in its second year, will feature 11 condominium and apartment projects, and will include the Sage Gourmet Café & Market in Deep Deuce, which recently opened.

Kim Searls, marketing director for Downtown OKC Inc., said attendance numbers for the free self-guided tour exceeded her expectations last year. “We thought if we had 700 people we’d be happy,” she said. “When we had around 2,000, we were very happy, but not necessarily surprised.”

The first tour featured 11 properties. One of those is Block 42, which will be on this year’s tour. Searls said last year 1,600 people visited the condo project.
Searls said she expects Sage to be a popular stop this year. The gourmet market is the first downtown grocery store.

“We’re really glad to have them on board this year,” Searls said. “People always ask us questions about grocery stores.”

Hatfield’s project will give potential downtown dwellers the chance to see what is possible in the former library.

Hatfield said the economy has slowed work on the project, but she sees that as an opportunity to get lower construction costs. She also hopes an $8,000 federal tax credit for first-time buyers will spur interest.

The residential, office and retail spaces are priced from $155,000 to $750,000.

“I’m getting more demand from people who want an office they can own downtown,” Hatfield said. The units will be sold as lofts and not as finished products.
“It lets people be more creative with what they are purchasing,” she said.

And if the lofts don’t lure buyers right away, Hatfield is sure that once people get a view of downtown from the fourth floor of the library they will want to live or work in the building.

The project is about 15 months from completion, but Hatfield wants to line up tenants.
“I’m ready to sign them up,” she said.

This year’s tour will include a seminar titled “Downtown Living, How Can You Afford Not To?” The panel discussion will provide information on the tax credits for first-time buyers and ways of securing financing for a downtown condo.

The tour is scheduled for May 2 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and free shuttles will provide transportation between the sites.

The 2009 Move Up Downtown Living Tour
Block 42, The Hill, The Sieber, Legacy at Arts Quarter, Carnegie Centre, Park Harvey, The Montgomery, Central Avenue Villas, the Brownstones at Maywood Park, The Lofts at Maywood Park and the Sage Gourmet Café & Market.

Just a reminder the Downtown Living Tour is this Saturday.

Also, we're still needing several more volunteers so if you or anyone you know would be interested in volunteering for the home tour, please PM me.

Chalk lines? And don't worry, you're complex isn't on the tour this year.

Thank God.

Last time, someone got a pink piece of chalk and drew a designated path through the complex. Since that time, I've had a nice pink chalk line out in front of my apartment.

Small, innocuous things bother me sometimes.

So does that mean your volunteering Mid?

Maybe next year. In fact, assuming I pass the Bar Exam, go ahead and pencil me in. I'm still in school and have finals the week of the downtown living tour, and for that matter, I think I'm actually in a Bar Review class during a large part of it.

I'm all about promoting downtown living, but I have priorities. It's too bad y'all aren't checking out Sycamore this year. They're letting us do a community garden. I'm pretty sure that's unique to the area.

Will do. Good to know you all are doing a community garden. I would like more information about that as I'm trying to get my downtown condo complex to institute one as well.

Just a reminder the tour is tomorrow RAIN OR SHINE!

Move UP Downtown Living Tour Saturday, May 2 Rain or Shine!

Now is the time to move up to Downtown Oklahoma City! On Saturday, May 2, the second annual Move UP Downtown Living Tour will offer the chance to tour apartments, lofts and condos and new and future construction.

The May 2 tour runs from 11 am – 5 pm and is F*R*E*E. Ride the F*R*E*E Move UP shuttle around Downtown and between stops. The tour will be self-guided and stops can be visited in any order. Tour books and maps will be available at each stop. F*R*E*E parking will be provided. The F*R*E*E shuttles will run a continuous loop of the tour locations. Click here for a map of the tour and parking!

The Move UP tour will lead you through 10 new or renovated residential developments for sale and lease including Block 42; The Hill; The Sieber; Legacy at Arts Quarter; Carnegie Centre; Park Harvey; The Montgomery; Central Avenue Villas; the Brownstones at Maywood Park, and The Lofts at Maywood Park. Special features on this year's tour include:

• A visit to Sage Gourmet Cafe & Market, Downtown Oklahoma City's new boutique grocer.

• Downtown Living, How Can You Afford Not To? A seminar about Downtown financing and the reasonable cost of the Urban Lifestyle. Sessions at 2:00 & 4:00 at Trattoria il Centro, stop number nine.

• Join Jane's Walk, a walking tour of Deep Deuce led by city planner AJ Kirkpatrick at 3:00 at stop number 6. Jane's Walk, one of a series of world-wide neighborhood walking tours given by locals, honors urban pioneer Jane Jacobs.

As you visit each property, make sure and register to win one of our exciting Downtown prizes. The more properties you tour, the better your chance to win! Prizes include a "Downtown Test Drive" at the Skirvin Hilton with a deluxe room and dinner at the Park Avenue Grill, a $150 dinner for 2 at Nonna's Bricktown,two weekend packages at The Residence Inn by Marriott Bricktown and gift certificates and passes to many of Downtown's finest eating establishments and exciting attractions.

Will do. Good to know you all are doing a community garden. I would like more information about that as I'm trying to get my downtown condo complex to institute one as well.

Not much to it really. Someone wanted to do it, so they asked permission and the landlord told us where it could go. A rototiller was borrowed and the rest is history.

A word about rototilling downtown. A LOT of construction debris is simply buried on site around here. You'll need to clear the bricks and other debris out of the soil before running a rototiller.

Pretty damp, but interesting. I saw a 3 story townhouse at Block 42 that was really nice. If I'd seen it last year, I might be living elsewhere this year.

I didn't really find much that I liked on the tour honestly. For the prices that they're charging, I'd be expecting the homes to be in a much larger city with more to do in the immediate area. Oddly enough, the place I liked best is rental only, but I just don't think we can go back to being renters again any time soon. But I was amazed at how large the Park Harvey apartments looked, considering their size. I loved the grand studio!! If only we could purchase one instead, and update the kitchen. Oh well.

Oh wait, I take that back. I did like the Lofts at Maywood pretty well. :) Though the brownstone was really pretentious feeling to me, but I know it's set up to be luxurious.

We looked at the Park Harvey, but I couldn't imagine living there. The coin-op laundry facility is pretty much a dealbreaker.

after going on the tour I left very impressed with what downtown OKC has to offer. The one complaint I do have is that it seems that everyone is selling to a very narrow group of people and has almost abandoned the younger, recent college graduate age group. Having just graduated from OU there is no way that I or my friends who are in the same boat as I could afford to live down there. If we want a downtown that is full of residents why aren't there more options for a wider range of incomes?

after going on the tour I left very impressed with what downtown OKC has to offer. The one complaint I do have is that it seems that everyone is selling to a very narrow group of people and has almost abandoned the younger, recent college graduate age group. Having just graduated from OU there is no way that I or my friends who are in the same boat as I could afford to live down there. If we want a downtown that is full of residents why aren't there more options for a wider range of incomes?

some of the cheaper options weren't on the tour. you should check out Classen Glen condos if you really want to live close to the downtown area. one of my friends got a condo there for just under 40K...pretty good price

Not much to it really. Someone wanted to do it, so they asked permission and the landlord told us where it could go. A rototiller was borrowed and the rest is history.

A word about rototilling downtown. A LOT of construction debris is simply buried on site around here. You'll need to clear the bricks and other debris out of the soil before running a rototiller.

Yeah, but my complex is all multi-owner, including myself. I know your complex is half rental, half owner occupied, so that makes the rental half easier, I'm thinking my situation would require a vote of the homeowners.

We looked at the Park Harvey, but I couldn't imagine living there. The coin-op laundry facility is pretty much a dealbreaker.

Heaven forbid Downtown OKC has at least one true urban living experience property. Heck, most places in NYC, Seattle, Chicago, SF, Austin, Portland, Charlotte, and other major cities have several COIN-OP laundries in their downtown. Ours has zero that I know of, at least Park Harvey has one in the building. I don't use one, but the Laundromat is part of a good and healthy urban landscape.

Laundromats are a pretty lower-class concept though. I could be wrong, but in those places, I don't think your higher-end (which the Park Harvey is supposed to be) apartment buildings have coin-op laundromats.

I'd disagree. I'd say newer buildings have them in the unit or a laundromat for the building. Older properties may not offer them. There are plenty of young professionals and others in larger, hipper cities that use laundromats. Go to San Diego, Austin, LA, San Fran, Portland, Seattle, Chicago, NYC, Atlanta, you will see plenty of them using landromats. Some do it just for the experience for meeting other people, reading time, etc. I still think it's a healthy part of an urban core. It helps bring all walks of life downtown. We don't want an upscale, gated community type of downtown, which is most of what the new developments are, especially The Hill. Sycamore Square is also kind of isolated and gated off. We need people interacting more with the street, and not gated off in their condo.

Park Harvey's facilities don't let anyone interact with the street. They're somewhere on one of the upper floors next to some sort of lounge with a big TV.

This ain't NYC or Atlanta and this is certainly not an old building (at least not since it's been newly renovated).

Sycamore's not really urban. We could plop it in the middle of Edmond and it'd fit right in. That aside, all of the urban bricktown properties have built in laundry. Park Harvey stands alone.

True, but at least their laundromat gets some of their tenants to interact more. They have a Sushi/Sports Bar that interacts with the street, as well as the old Claybourne's vacant space that will hopefully be filled soon, so on that note, I do like how PH interacts with the street and the CBD more than the other properties. Also Bricktown only has one residential property, The Centennial.

By "Bricktown," (in my mind) I was including the area north of there. Block 42, Deep Deuce, etc. No laundromats there either.

I'm guessing Park Harvey's laundry issues have more to do with the expense of installing dryer vents. I'm not really sure how that'd work.

The parking I can get past (my parking isn't that much better than theirs), but for the money, at least for me, the laundry thing was a dealbreaker. We have a top-of-the-line washer/dryer which does just about anything we could ask it to do. Way too much money was dropped on that to put it in storage.

Park Harvey had all kinds of issues from what I understand. As you may know the 99 year ground lease almost lost the whole project. Also due to the financing type, I understand they wanted to dress up the outside of the building, but had to keep the original exterior, etc. The Downtown Living Tour was a success, several condos downtown got contract offers, one was a cash offer. Definitely were more serious buyers this year than last year.

Im all for making urban areas urban, but I dont think laundromats are a required for an area to be considered urban. I think if we asked those who live downtown or those that want to, a majority of them would much rather prefer washer and dryers in the individual units, especially for the prices being asked at these housing complexes.

Im all for making urban areas urban, but I dont think laundromats are a required for an area to be considered urban. I think if we asked those who live downtown or those that want to, a majority of them would much rather prefer washer and dryers in the individual units, especially for the prices being asked at these housing complexes.

I think that goes without saying for condos. I'm a happily married individual who likes his privacy and likes to have lots of spare change in his car so laundromats are not for me. If, on the other hand, I moved to OKC, was single and looking, or just wanting to meet folks to establish a social life, a laundromat in the expensive apartment building I leased might be ok.

Im all for making urban areas urban, but I dont think laundromats are a required for an area to be considered urban. I think if we asked those who live downtown or those that want to, a majority of them would much rather prefer washer and dryers in the individual units, especially for the prices being asked at these housing complexes.

I do live downtown, for 3 years now. On the board for all the downtown residents, there isn't a huge demand, but I do think it's a part of a healthy urban landscape. Now I too have w/d in my unit, and would not use one either as I am married, but if single I probably wouldn't care as much. As I said earlier and Mid added, it's a common meeting place for singles in major urban areas. It also brings all walks of life in the innermost core, especially when some more affordable housing comes online downtown.

In San Francisco, the laundromats have full bars in them. Nice place to get lucky.

especially when some more affordable housing comes online downtown.

I think that eventually, with its W/D accommodations and lack of parking, the Park Harvey will probably end up having to be an 'affordable' option for housing. When more units of similar quality in comparable locations come on line (units with w/d hookups), I don't think PH will be able to compete at its current price point.

- but maybe they can add a full bar to the laundry? they already have a nice lounge area just off of it.

I didn't go on the tour this year because there didn't seem to be anything new form what was shown last year. And it was mostly overpriced. One thing about the Park Harvey units is whoever gets a unit on the south side should have a great view of Devon going up the next few years. There was also a nice workout facility there. (If I remember correctly).

Keep in mind, not a lot of new projects were built or started construction after the economy tanked, so most developments were just completed as most all of them last year were incomplete. Sieber was finished this year, Central Avenue Villas was on the tour and complete this year, Block 42 is complete, many of the Brownstones are now complete. The Maywood Lofts were brand new this year (they are going to have an amazing rooftop and clubhouse), Sage was new, we had a stop in Bricktown this year if people wanted to eat/shop, etc., Carnegie Centre was actually at their location this year (the old downtown library) instead of Red Prime with renderings. Man, I think they are a little overpriced, but they are going to have some AWESOME balcony views, especially the ones facing west. I shot some video footage at the tour and will try and edit and post some of it in the coming weeks. We also had lots of restaurants participating and offering discounts this year so people had other things to do besides just look at houses.

I thought the tour was very different from last year. Even Block 42, which was open last year, had two very different options to look at this year. I enjoyed the opportunity to see the new developments as well.

If anyone has feedback or things they liked or would like to see that maybe weren't on the tour, please post comments here or PM me. I am putting together a list and will take it into consideration much earlier for the next tour. Midtown Properties were going to be on the tour, but decided that they weren't quite ready for this year.