Mideke Building

[PhiAlpha]

Hopefully the first floor will still be retail or restaurant space


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[Urbanized]

^^^^^^^

I approve of the last four posts.

[coov23]

BTW, it's my understanding that the Andy Burnett group now has (or will have very shortly) control of all five floors of the Mideke.

The original plan was to buy the upper three floors for housing but when the Tapstone deal presented itself, they decided to acquire the entire building.

Pretty sure City Walk will be going away; not sure about Coco Flow.

City walk would move to another building, correct? That club has always been a pretty hot spot for the youngsters. Seems like it would be done for Bricktown to allow it to leave, correct?

[metro]

Bricktown is very office heavy believe it or not.

I wouldn't call Sonic HQ and a few small offices on the canal and on Main St. "office heavy". Sure they're may be more than people realize, but I doubt more than 500 office workers in Bricktown, which is small peanuts compared to rest of downtown.

[ljbab728]

metro, I don't think anyone is suggesting that Bricktown office use will approach the CBD. LOL
The amount of office use is becoming significant, however.

[kbsooner]

I wouldn't call Sonic HQ and a few small offices on the canal and on Main St. "office heavy". Sure they're may be more than people realize, but I doubt more than 500 office workers in Bricktown, which is small peanuts compared to rest of downtown.

As a Bricktown officer, I will agree that there is a decent contingent of us but 500 sounds about right. I'm going to get roasted for this, but parking is becoming an issue with our growing firm. We've got employees in 4 separate lots through Bricktown. Putting the employees into lots is not that big of a deal (they are increasingly farther away from the office), but bringing in clients and getting them parking is also becoming an issue. We are starting to weigh our options in Bricktown as well as other areas around downtown, we are not sure our future is there...

[Jeepnokc]

As a Bricktown officer, I will agree that there is a decent contingent of us but 500 sounds about right. I'm going to get roasted for this, but parking is becoming an issue with our growing firm. We've got employees in 4 separate lots through Bricktown. Putting the employees into lots is not that big of a deal (they are increasingly farther away from the office), but bringing in clients and getting them parking is also becoming an issue. We are starting to weigh our options in Bricktown as well as other areas around downtown, we are not sure our future is there...

I had the opportunity to move to Bricktown several years ago and that is exactly why we didn't. Even though landlord was able to show us some parking solutions for staff, the public still perceives there to be a parking problem and was concerned of losing potential new clients because of it. You would be amazed the number of potential new clients we have now one that are concerned about parking in the downtown area in general. Not saying right or wrong.....just that there is a perception of parking being problem. Being able to offer free parking is a huge bonus for any company that relies upon customers visiting their location.

[Just the facts]

I wish I could find it now but a few days ago StrongTowns sent out an article about the true cost of 'free parking'. The cost to the cities in the study was staggering and it would actually be better for the average business to have no customers and instead the City just write the business a check for NOT having them. In some cases it was upwards of $50,000 per parking space. There were 6 cities in the study but the only one I remember was Hartford, CT. Based on how they arrived at the true cost OKC would have faired very poorly if they had been included. I'll keep looking to see if I can find it.

[bchris02]

Pretty sure City Walk will be going away; not sure about Coco Flow.

That sucks. It's one of the better clubs in Bricktown and in OKC. Will it be closing for good?

[Jeepnokc]

I wish I could find it now but a few days ago StrongTowns sent out an article about the true cost of 'free parking'. The cost to the cities in the study was staggering and it would actually be better for the average business to have no customers and instead the City just write the business a check for NOT having them. In some cases it was upwards of $50,000 per parking space. There were 6 cities in the study but the only one I remember was Hartford, CT. Based on how they arrived at the true cost OKC would have faired very poorly if they had been included. I'll keep looking to see if I can find it.

I wasn't really talking about free parking paid for by the city. I offer free parking to my clients now but I rent the parking from a private entity. My new space will have on site parking behind the building. I have no problems with parking meters on public spaces. It keeps the local workers from parking all day which frees up space for customers to come and go.

[Urbanized]

I wouldn't call Sonic HQ and a few small offices on the canal and on Main St. "office heavy". Sure they're may be more than people realize, but I doubt more than 500 office workers in Bricktown, which is small peanuts compared to rest of downtown.

But metro that's not an accurate assessment at all. I'm not representing the district has thousands of workers or is somehow overpopulated by office, but most people unfortunately believe it has what you just represented (or less), and that is simply untrue.

Bricktown has offices in the Sonic HQ of course, and also (as you mention) along the canal (though between multiple floors of offices in JDM, Miller-Jackson, Kingman, Harding-Shelton I think "a few small offices" is an unfair characterization; Longwave in M-J by itself has dozens of employees). I would also include ACM@UCO as an office use, for discussion purposes.

But you neglect to mention a string of buildings along Sheridan (Glass/Confectionary houses ADG, law firms and others), Bunte Candy (Chickasaw Tourism, Advanced Academics, Johnson & Associates, others). There are also the several buildings along Main east of Walnut, a couple of newly-remodeled new beautiful buildings along main WEST of Walnut, plus the building which has housed ACOG and others for years at Main and Oklahoma Ave.

All told, I suspect (but don't know for a fact) that the number of office employees in the district is north of 500 but probably less than a thousand. The market will obviously change dramatically again when the Rock Island Plow building and this building come online, but I would suspect that Bricktown already has the largest population of office workers of any district other than the CBD, with the possible exception of Automobile Alley.

When you say small peanuts compared to the rest of downtown hopefully you understand that comparing it to the CBD or to downtown as a whole is not fair. Comparisons should be done at a district level, and if you do it that way Bricktown fares nicely.

[Dubya61]

I wish I could find it now but a few days ago StrongTowns sent out an article about the true cost of 'free parking'. The cost to the cities in the study was staggering and it would actually be better for the average business to have no customers and instead the City just write the business a check for NOT having them. In some cases it was upwards of $50,000 per parking space. There were 6 cities in the study but the only one I remember was Hartford, CT. Based on how they arrived at the true cost OKC would have faired very poorly if they had been included. I'll keep looking to see if I can find it.

I'm a big fan of Freakonomics. They "investigated" free parking (Freakonomics » Parking Is Hell: Full Transcript) and interviewed Donald Shoup (a very interesting guy in his own right: Donald Shoup) who says we pay more for parking (and the minimum required "free parking" models most cities use) then we can possibly imagine.

[David]

Conceptual plans presented for Mideke Building makeover

Conceptual plans for a $17 million makeover of the Mideke Building to become the home of Tapstone Energy won near-unanimous praise Wednesday from the Bricktown Urban Design Committee members.

[PhiAlpha]

I especially like this part:

“My goal is a great mixed-used building that has good interaction with the street, brings life to the district, and more importantly, to that corner,” Burnett said. “We want to see the same life that Kitchen No. 324 brought to the Braniff building and its surrounding area."

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[Pete]

It doesn't sound like there will be any type of rooftop patio, which was to be included in the residential design.

That's a shame, as people that have been up there say it's pretty incredible.

[warreng88]

I hope this effort helps push the Spaghetti Warehouse people to do something with their building. BT is starting to run thin on office/residential space will a lot of the top floors of buildings being renovated. Now, with the Rock Island Plow building starting construction soon, that open space on the upper floors of buildings is only going to get smaller.

[Anonymous.]

This will be a huge help to that corner. Right now the only street interactions will really be the Holiday Inn Express on the corner. We need a restaraunt right on this corner with an outdoor entertainment/eating area. This corner and Main st overall has so much untapped potential.

[Anonymous.]

Also, I am guessing this means CityWalk is going away?

[Pete]

Coco Flow is there now and is open 10-10.

There has also been some talk about a Brazilian steakhouse.

[shawnw]

While I'm not a big fan of City Walk personally (nothing against it, just indifferent), it seems like the idea of a business moving into an occupied buildings upper floors, only to eventually push out the original business on the lower floors, might actually deter other business/building owners from finding ways to open up their upper floors...

[Urbanized]

I doubt that. The removal of City Walk is not due to the fact that the new tenant doesn't want a business on the ground floor. It's that they don't want a club in their building.

[Pete]

I doubt that. The removal of City Walk is not due to the fact that the new tenant doesn't want a business on the ground floor. It's that they don't want a club in their building.

Have you heard they are for sure being forced out?

[Urbanized]

Well, I haven't heard it directly from Andy or from the City Walk guys, but I've now heard it from enough people generally in the know to accept that it will almost certainly happen.

[Pete]

Yeah, I was just looking over my notes and remembered that Ward really wanted City Walk out and even though they have a couple of years to run on their lease, some sort of buyout arrangement was part of the Tapstone deal.

[shawnw]

Oh. The fact that the building owner wanted the club out was not clear to me. Since they leased it out to the club to begin with.


Edit: Read what you said wrong. Not the owners. But still if an upstairs business doesn't want a particular downstairs business they get to dictate? (Obvs an energy company that may be a future Fortune XXXX company will have sway, but should they?)