View Full Version : Urban Renewal grants extensions........



metro
07-16-2009, 08:04 AM
I can just see it now, Legacy Summit at Arts Quarter all over again......next year they'll probably get another 1 year extension. Hopefully, they prove me wrong. For Maywood Park and the Hill, I can kind of understand since they HAVE built some units, but Overholser Green is already a stretch in the already stretched thin ultra-luxury and pricey condo market, I think they should have put that one back up for bid. No way they are going to let their Heritage Hills buddies down though.


Economy forces redevelopers to stall; OCURA grants project extensions
by Kelley Chambers
The Journal Record July 16, 2009
OKLAHOMA CITY – Redevelopers for three downtown Oklahoma City residential projects want more time.

http://www.journalrecord.com/_images/articles/t_labskc-urb%20ren_MS%2007-16-09.jpg
JoeVan Bullard, executive director of the Oklahoma City Urban Renewal Authority (OCURA), discusses extensions for redevelopment contracts put on hold because of a lack of financing during the OCURA meeting Wednesday morning. (Photo by Maike Sabolich)

Oklahoma City Urban Renewal Authority Executive Director JoeVan Bullard said two redevelopers asked for extensions because of economic conditions. OCURA commissioners granted each project a one-year extension, leaving open the possibility of a second extension next year.“All of our designated redevelopers wanted to have a greater period and we worked with them and said, ‘if economic conditions are the same we’ll understand if we have to come back in July 2010 to give you another year,” he said.

Units were coming out of the ground at The Hill and the Brownstones at Maywood Park when financing dried up because of the national economy and work ground to a halt. Work on the Overholser Green project, set for a piece of land in Midtown, has not begun.

The Hill, a condominium project, was granted an extension on future building and land payments were modified to reflect only the portion already under development.

OCURA commissioners voted Tuesday to move the deadline to begin work on Overholser Green’s first four phases to July 1, 2010 and moved the completion deadline to July 1, 2011. Subsequent phases would be allowed to move forward if the developers hit those targets.

Chuck Wiggin, one of the Overholser Green developers, said the project is alive, but in limbo. Overholser Green was approved for 85 to 100 condominiums priced from $250,000 to $400,000.

“We’re anxious to carry out the project when the market will permit that,” Wiggin said. “At this point it doesn’t, and the financing situation is still very difficult.”

Maywood Park investor Anthony McDermid is experiencing a similar situation. OCURA commissioners granted his group an extension on development of three parcels.

“We’re all looking ahead and hope the economy is going to turn the corner,” McDermid said. “But does anybody really know how long that is going to take? No.”

Twenty of the brownstones are done, and about one-fourth have sold. The units are priced from $500,000 to $800,000.

Kim Searls, marketing director of Downtown OKC Inc., is not discouraged.
“The economy really does have such a big effect on projects like that,” she said. “We’re in a holding pattern right now.”

With the extra time, Searls said, the developers might also look at rethinking some of their ideas. McDermid said he looks at new options regularly for unit mixes and price points.

“We’re in a constant state of reviewing what’s selling and where the demand is,” he said.

wsucougz
07-16-2009, 08:08 AM
Overholser Green needs to be put to rest.

BDP
07-16-2009, 08:44 AM
Well, this does makes sense now because of the economy, but when has Urban Renewal ever forced a deadline, bad economy or good?

Really, if developers are going to build whatever they want, whenever they want, do we really need Urban Renewal to administrate these properties? How about we just use one person who buys them and puts them on eBay for us and forget about all this committee bureaucracy stuff.

soonerguru
07-16-2009, 12:06 PM
Well, this does makes sense now because of the economy, but when has Urban Renewal ever forced a deadline, bad economy or good?

Really, if developers are going to build whatever they want, whenever they want, do we really need Urban Renewal to administrate these properties? How about we just use one person who buys them and puts them on eBay for us and forget about all this committee bureaucracy stuff.


They don't and won't. JoeVan, whom I admittedly don't know, seems totally in over his head.

metro
07-16-2009, 02:10 PM
Agreed.