Downtown Living Tour 2010 - thoughts

[DirtLaw]

Good for you Dirt Law. Again, if developers built stuff that captured people tired of paying rent, we would have a real lively downtown.

I think they will, but the problem is that property is so expensive downtown that you have to build high end stuff to make the numbers work.

[Larry OKC]

I think they will, but the problem is that property is so expensive downtown that you have to build high end stuff to make the numbers work.

That was a point brought up a couple of times in the ULI presentation. That there needs to be a mixture of residential price points. To do so, there will have to be public subsidy in some form, otherwise, like you said, the numbers don't work and all you get is the high dollar.

That is one point that I take issue with on the ULI presentation. It seems time after time, they were saying it was going to take public investment to get these things to happen...not just building the public elements (Park, Streetcars etc). Downtown retail (subsidized by $40M just to get ONE major retailer, IIRC); housing (see above); about $50M for the adjoining Convention Center hotel.

I see most of that as similar to the Bass Pro deal etc. The City shouldn't be putting itself in the position of being a landlord. IMO. Public investment for public projects is one thing but this more direct co-mingling of taxpayer funds, not so much. It would be one thing if OKC was flush with cash and had the extra $40M, $50M etc just laying around, but we don't.

[MikeOKC]

Several mentions of The Montgomery. Are those apartments only or are some of them owned? Does anyone know the starting apt. rental rate? If any are condos, what the cost is? Just curious.

[bluedogok]

I think they will, but the problem is that property is so expensive downtown that you have to build high end stuff to make the numbers work.

Not really, it's just the investors have to look at the returns in a longer time frame than what the typical investor turnaround time seems to be, which is just another symptom of the short attention span society. The idea of "building high end" with a trickle down in pricing works in suburban apartments/rentals where there is an existing stock move down market like it also works in commercial properties but when there is no existing stock there is nothing there to move down market. In that case there needs to build properties built at different price points, which is done all the time in suburban residential. Investors need to understand not everything is going to have a 3-5 year payoff.